Investigating Open Ended Questions Through Inquiry Based Research

Why Investigating Open Ended Questions Through Inquiry Based Research?

"...we should be committing to teaching our children accurate and creative searching techniques that are applicable across every discipline...Student researchers learn to ask better questions, find real answers, and apply the information they uncover in their work." - Alan November, Who Owns the Learning

"The skill of question asking is far too rarely deliberately taught in school... The ability to formulate one’s own questions may be, other than basic literacy, the most important learning skills available to a student, an employee, a scientist and a citizen. Students who ask questions, who ask good questions, and who can set and follow a line of inquiry will succeed at a far higher rate than those who either do not know how to formulate their own questions or simply fail to regularly generate their own questions. Asking questions is one of the most important skills for learning. When students learn to ask questions they become more engaged, have more ownership of their learning and learn more." - The Right Question Institute http://rightquestion.org/

We live in a world in which we are bombarded with information at all times via social media, Google, YouTube, and more. We also live in the era of “fake news” and biased news reports. Given that, it is crucial that we teach students, starting as early as possible, how to:
- Ask the most interesting questions possible - strong, open-ended questions
- Use print and electronic resources and the help of trained librarians to find accurate answers to those questions

Questions help students (and all people) express their curiosity. Learning how to ask the best open-ended questions builds curiosity.

Learning how to ask open-ended questions on a topic is the second step in the Stripling Model of Inquiry, which is the research model taught in NYCDOE school libraries. It is critical that this step come before Step 3, which is Investigate. Without good, solid, meaty questions, what are researchers investigating? It is at the point at which students find it impossible to tap into their curiosity and come up with open-ended questions that teachers end up giving students questions to investigate. This overlooks the critical step of having students engage with the material, determine what makes them feel curious, and articulate that curiosity as an open-ended question. The process of coming up with open-ended questions allows students to own the material.

When kids come into a library, they don’t know what they’re looking at. They need to know that the library is a center of information. They start with curiosity, then they know that the librarian is an information expert who can help them hone their open-ended questions, find information, and find answers from that information.

My project aims to teach second graders how to ask good, solid, interesting open-ended questions and then to use inquiry based research tools and knowledge of the library as a center of information run by a librarian who is an information expert to answer those questions.

The Process

Studied Student Researcher chapter in Who Owns The Learning by Alan November
Signed up for the Educator Network on The Right Question Institute website http://rightquestion.org/educators/
Lessons on:
- How the library is organized --> using Nearpod to check for understanding of organization of Nonfiction books in the library https://share.nearpod.com/5yn7QGGtyQ and https://share.nearpod.com/3khbTz8L3U
- What is an eBook and how do I access them? https://sites.google.com/ps112m.org/ps-112-library/parents/accessing-ebooks
- What is a database? How is it different from a website? How do I access databases? --> webquest #1 using Nearpod and Google sites
- How can I use YouTube for research? (Basic - the idea that YouTube can be used to find information, not only as a form of entertainment, looking at who made the video to determine if it is a good source for research, using specific search terms but not complete sentences) --> webquest #2 using Nearpod and Google sites
- How do I ask the most interesting open ended questions? Asking open ended questions about moccasins and looking at a picture of moccasins with just the information that moccasins are shoes worn by some American Indian tribes, making a movie using iMovie sharing what we learned and our open ended questions about moccasins
Introduce the Blog Project
- Come up with open ended, interesting questions during science lessons during the week
  - Share your question (choose your favorite one) with your partner.
  - Choose one question to answer together.
  - Use print and electronic resources to research the answer to the question in this order:
    - Nonfiction books
    - Databases (BrainPop Jr.)
    - Websites (YouTube)
    - Fiction Books
  - Go to the class Blog (made with Blogger) http://interestingquestionsps112.blogspot.com/ and blog the following:
    - Your open-ended question
    - The answer to the open-ended question
    - Your research process in looking for that answer including where you found the answer.
    - Use extra time to comment on previous posts from classmates and to respond to any comments you got on your posts.
Promote class blog to parents and to a global audience, encouraging feedback (but all feedback approved by me before posted to check for appropriateness)

Why Innovation in Technology?

(What is the purpose of the project? How does it fit into your classroom curriculum, school-wide tech initiative, etc?)

This project was created to help our students with academic language, promote higher level thinking and oral language responses.

Questions to ponder as we create our vision for digital leadership at our school:

What roles do digital resources play in our mission?
- In focusing on building Academic Discourse, using technology tools target each of the four domains of Academic Discourse in highly engaging ways.
  - Reading:
    - Webquest: When working on the webquests, students are motivated to help each other read each word and understand its meaning so that they can follow each instruction properly. They are intrinsically motivated to learn about YouTube.
    - iMovie: Students are motivated to read correctly so that they sound good in the movie they are making. Their partners are motivated to help them for the same reason. Therefore, they work together on reading fluency for their part.
    - Blog: When working on the blog, students need to read and understand what they are reading in order to complete the research they do from nonfiction books, which is the first place they will look.
  - Writing:
    - Webquest: Students are so engaged in learning about YouTube, a tool that they use for fun almost everyday and about which they are therefore motivated to learn, that when the Webquest instructs them to click to go to Nearpod to write about what they found out, they do it almost without thinking about the fact that they are being asked to write. They also know that their responses will be showed to the whole class, so they are motivated to make as few mistakes as possible.
    - iMovie: For the iMovie, students worked with their partner to write the questions they asked in the movie. They were motivated to do this carefully and correctly and to edit based on teacher feedback because they knew that whatever they wrote would be what they would say in the movie.
    - Blog: The Blog is all about writing. Working in pairs (and one group of three), students are motivated to help each other do their best writing and to edit based on teacher feedback because their Blog will be available to a global audience.
  - Listening:
    - Webquest: In working on the Webquest, the students are forced to listen to each other because they all have to agree before answering any questions or writing any responses.
    - iMovie: Creating the iMovie involved collaborative conversations in which students looked at a picture of a moccasin and had the open-ended question words as a tool and then had to come up with an open-ended question about moccasins about which they were curious. Students cannot successfully engage in collaborative conversation in which they build on what their partner says without listening.
    - Blog: Students will be reading each other's open-ended questions from science class and engaging in collaborative conversation to choose the one they will answer. Then, they will be researching together, which involves more collaborative conversation. Finally, they are writing their blog entry together, which involves collaborative conversation. Students cannot successfully engage in collaborative conversation in which they build on what their partner says without listening. This will be stated to students explicitly (the importance of listening to each other as they work) in the intro to the blog.
  - Speaking - Oral Language Development:
    - Webquest: In order to complete the Webquest, especially the sections that required opinions, pairs had to speak with each other using Academic Vocabulary (website, database, source).
    - iMovie: Making the iMovie involved collaborative conversations in which students created their open-ended questions and then practiced saying them for the film.
    - Blog: In order to work with their partner(s) to choose an open-ended question, research the answer, and blog about the question, the answer, and the research process, students are going to have to speak with each other using Academic Vocabulary from both Library Class (database, website, source, research, open-ended question, curious, and more) and Science Class.
What can digital resources do for the culturally and linguistically diverse community that we serve?
- Technology is engaging for students. Period. It is the language they speak. When I show students just a picture of the YouTube logo, they get excited because it means that they are learning something that is relevant to their daily lives.
- Working with technology allows differentiated pairs to help each other with reading, writing, listening and speaking skills. Because students are in differentiated pairs, they help each other with these skills. Because it is technology based, they feel self-motivated to help develop these skills.
- Both the movie and the blog allow students to practice what they say over and over again. In terms of the movie, they get to rehearse and then, if they make a mistake, we reshoot the film. In terms of the blog, they can edit their post as many times as they would like before it goes public - and even after that. This makes it safe for students to take risks in their reading, writing, and comprehension and to learn the value of editing.
- Students get to teach the content (open-ended questions, how they do their investigation using databases and websites, and the science content they are researching) to others (a global audience). People remember 90% of what they teach, but only 35% of what they see and hear.

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