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LeaRners engage collaboratively in authentic inquiry during ongoing units of study.
LeaRners engage collaboratively in authentic inquiry during ongoing units of study.
Scaffolded Inquiry Across Grade Levels
Structured Inquiry, Controlled and Guided Inquiry, & Free and Open Based Inquiry
At Cahaba Elementary School, learners continually engage in authentic inquiry through systematically planned and implemented project-based units of study and consistently work collaboratively to complete rigorous tasks, including problem identification, investigation, and analysis.
In vertical planning sessions, teachers scaffold student inquiry from Kindergarten through 5th grade by implementing the four levels of inquiry outlined by Trevor MacKenzie in his Inquiry Mindset Books. Scaffolding inquiry means that teachers design inquiry experiences based upon cognitive stages and mastery of inquiry skills. Students begin with structured inquiry experiences in Kindergarten. With each grade level, they gain more knowledge and skills, allowing them to engage in self-directed inquiry experiences by 5th grade.
STRUCTURED INQUIRY
STRUCTURED INQUIRY
Scaffolded inquiry experiences begin with structured inquiry in our primary grades. With structured inquiry, the teacher guides students in inquiry based learning experiences as a class. The teacher provides the essential question or problem to solve, designs specific learning activities, determines the resources students will use and creates the summative assessment in which the students will show their understanding. It is the most teacher-controlled form of inquiry and necessary in primary grades because students have not developed any of the knowledge or skills needed for inquiry and are still concrete and ego-centric learners.
KINDERGARTEN STRUCTURED INQUIRY
The most basic form of structured inquiry begins in our Kindergarten classes, where our Kindergarten teachers have developed structured inquiry units that introduce inquiry learning and new STEM concepts and skills to our youngest learners. For example, the “Ornithologists by Design'' project is an excellent example of how our Kindergarten teachers challenge young students with structured inquiry in a project based learning experience, while also introducing STEM careers and the basic engineering design process.
In this structured inquiry based project, Kindergarten teachers begin by posing a problem-based question for the project, “How can an engineer design a bird feeder that attracts many birds?” Next, teachers created specific learning activities where students learned basic STEM knowledge and skills and provided the students with the resources to do those activities. Students learned about the different types of birds they would see and how to observe as a scientist. Teachers took students to the bird sanctuary where they learned to use binoculars and what to look for when observing birds. During their observation, the teachers asked guided questions in whole group discussions and recorded students’ observations on a teacher made observation sheet.
Next, teachers showed students how to use their knowledge from their bird watching observations to build a bird feeder that could feed many birds by introducing them to the engineering design process and walking them through each step. First, teachers showed students a variety of bird feeders and asked students guided questions about the design of the feeders. As a class, students brainstormed ideas about the design of a good feeder. Then, students sketched out a plan for their design, built a prototype of their design using different materials, and tested their feeders. Finally, teachers walked students through a critique of their design and asked them guided questions about how they could improve their feeders.
In this structured inquiry project, our Kindergarten teachers introduced the problem or question, created activities and posed guided questions for students to develop knowledge, provided the materials and resources in which students learned basic STEM skills, and took students through STEM processes and practices step by step.
Bird Feeders Structured Inquiry
Class Tally Sheet
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Student Reflection
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CES Bird Sanctuary
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Student Bird Feeder Design
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Student Designed Bird Feeder
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Student Designed Bird Feeder
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1st GRADE STRUCTURED INQUIRY
Our 1st grade teachers reinforce the STEM concepts and skills students learned in structured inquiry units in Kindergarten while introducing new concepts and skills in 1st grade. Where Kindergarten STEM units tend to be project based structured inquiry, in which students learn how to perform STEM processes, 1st grade units tend to be more interdisciplinary, structured inquiry investigations of STEM concepts. The 1st grade Animal Trait Inheritance and Variations Unit is a good example of an interdisciplinary, structured inquiry investigation of a STEM concept. This unit begins with a teacher developed learning target, “I can make observations to tell the similarities and differences of babies to their parents.” The teacher helps students recall knowledge about why baby animals look like their parents by asking the class a series of questions and recording the answers for the whole class to view. Then the students progress through a series of teacher created activities like reading books and creating models to learn about animal life cycles. Next, students learn to engage in student managed group discussions. Teachers provide student groups with questions that they must answer to help them collectively decide how to organize family members into groups. At this point, the teacher leads a class discussion about each student groups’ answers and clarifies any misunderstandings. Students then demonstrate their understanding by completing a teacher made assessment. Students must create a baby bug using a parent trait table and explain their design by answering questions.
1st Grade Identifying Traits
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CONTROLLED & GUIDED INQUIRY
CONTROLLED & GUIDED INQUIRY
5th Grade Controlled Inquiry Lesson
5th Grade Properties of Matter - Controlled Inquiry
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By second grade students understand structured inquiry and are ready for the next level of inquiry. Between second and fifth grade, Cahaba Elementary School students engage in the next level of inquiry - controlled and guided inquiry. These types of inquiry are teacher facilitated but student managed. Teachers develop controlled and guided inquiry experiences using our STEMScopes Science and Math Curriculums, Mystery Science, Generation Genius, the TCS Math Curriculum, and other resources like National Geographic Kids.
CONTROLLED INQUIRY
Controlled inquiry is when the teacher chooses a topic and identifies the resources that students will need to answer questions about the topic. Controlled inquiry is facilitated by the teacher but student pairs or groups perform the inquiries on their own using resources provided by the teacher. Though resources are provided by the teacher, in many controlled inquiry experiences, students identify the materials they will use from the resources the teacher provides. One example of this is the 5th Grade Properties of Matter investigation. In this activity, students use observations and measurements to identify materials such as powders, metals, minerals, and liquids based on properties such as color, hardness, reflectivity, electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, response to magnetic forces, solubility, and density. Then, students construct explanations from their observations to determine how the density of an object affects whether the object sinks or floats when placed in a liquid.
The activity begins with a game of yes and no that brings the knowledge they need for the inquiry to the forefront. Students are divided into groups and given cards with objects. The group members try to guess the object on the card using only yes or no questions about the physical properties of matter. After the game is over, students put cards into groups based on physical properties. After jogging their memories about physical properties, the class discusses how they could test objects to determine different properties and determine what materials they would need to perform the investigation and devise a plan for how they will investigate. Student groups gather their testing supplies and mystery substances to test. They made a hypothesis about each object. Then, they tested to see if their hypotheses were correct. Students tested properties of electrical conductors with a small circuit, magnetism with a magnet, density with a bucket of water, and reflectivity with a laser or flashlight. They charted their findings as they tested. After testing, students discussed the results and whether they had predicted correctly. Finally, students discussed the flaws of their predictions.
GUIDED INQUIRY
Guided inquiry is when the teacher proposes a topic or problem and students design a solution. One example of this is the 3rd grade Levee Inquiry. In this lesson, students study about the impact of natural disasters on human life. They learn about Hurricane Katrina and are presented with a scenario with a problem. Students had to design and construct a way to protect New Orleans from rising water. Students were given a set of requirements, a paint tray, craft sticks, and modeling clay. They used the Engineering Design Process to construct levees and then tested their prototypes. Afterwards they discussed why they believed their levees were effective or not, and those that were not made improvements and retested.
4th Grade Guided Inquiry
4th Grade Solar Ovens - Guided Inquiry
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Upper elementary grade teachers expand student learning above the curriculum guidelines. They are able to move our students from controlled inquiry to guided inquiry by having students use their knowledge from a controlled inquiry to design a solution or innovate an existing solution.
An example of this is the 4th grade Solar Ovens Guided Inquiry. In previous lessons, students learn about heat production, energy transfer, and renewable energy sources. Students engage in a controlled inquiry in which they build a solar oven and test it. Then, students are challenged to use what they know to design their own solar oven. The teacher prompts students to ask questions about how the change of the oven’s design would impact its cooking efficiency or speed. After asking questions, students determine something they want to improve and then brainstorm ideas for design changes that they feel would make the improvement. Students create a plan and build a prototype. They test the prototype to see if it improved the oven in the way they intended. If so, they reflect on why they were successful. If not, they discuss flaws in their design, make adjustments, and retest it to see if they were able to correct the flaws in their original design.
CONTROLLED - GUIDED PROJECT BASED INQUIRY
Sometimes guided and controlled inquiry is in the form of transdisciplinary projects. For example, students in 3rd grade participate in a living things unit in which they learn all about animal traits, habitats, life cycles, etc... Students as they participated in these lessons, they were learning about nonfiction text features in reading. Nonfiction text and STEM go hand in hand. Students must be able to understand nonfiction text in order to read and understand STEM based content. So teachers created a project in which students wrote their own nonfiction book in Google Slides. They addressed every nonfiction feature and all the living things standards in the resulting project. In addition, they participated in research, problem solving, and critical thinking skills as they learned and created their book. The books were compiled and put into a virtual library using the Bookcreator Program.
Example of a 3rd Grade Animal Book Nonfiction Library
Example of Student Nonfiction Book
Another example of a Project-Based Guided Project is the 2nd Grade Erosion Project. In this activity, students had to engineer solutions to farm erosion and then explain their model to the teacher.
3rd Grade Controlled - Guided PBL
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2nd Grade Controlled - Guided PBL
IMG_0013.MOV2nd Grade Farm Erosion - Guided PBL
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FREE-OPEN PROBLEM BASED INQUIRY
FREE-OPEN PROBLEM BASED INQUIRY
Free and Open Problem Based inquiry allows students to choose topics or problems for inquiry and involves students in self-directed learning in which students perform an investigation or set our to solve a real problem on their own. We offer a program called EnRich, where students get to choose from a plethora of courses that engage students in free and open problem-based inquiry. One of the courses is Coding Innovations. Grants and donations were used to purchase Micro:Bits Kits and accessories for the course and the course curriculum was created by our STEM Lab/Technology Specialist. This course engages students in a self-directed, open-problem solving inquiry where students develop their own innovations to solve real-world problems using MicroBit micro-computers and robotics technologies. The course opens with deep discussions of real world problems and issues. Then students identify a problem or issue they would like to solve. They choose their own methods of research and investigation to identify ways others have tried to solve the problem and gather information and ideas for how they might design a more successful solution. Next, students apply the engineering design process to design a solution to the problem using a micro-computer called a Micro:bit, their prior knowledge of coding, circuitry, and engineering concepts. Students in the course have created things like digital pets for people who are allergic to live pets, a toolbelt with a sensor that alerts you when you drop nails so that you aren’t injured, and an anti-poaching collar for kangaroos that alerts game wardens if an animal is still for too long. This course started in 2019 and was supposed to end with an event called Tech-Con where we invited local STEM professionals to come to student booths to listen to explanations of their product, how and why they designed it, and to see demonstrations of the product.
By the end of the year, Covid struck and our school moved to virtual learning. We were unable to have guests, including parents, at the school for two years. So, we had to cancel Tech-Con. So many students expressed interest in wanting to be in Coding Innovations during the Covid years, that the STEM teacher created a new unit in her curriculum called Improving the Future of the Galaxy in which all students will have the opportunity to develop a product for Tech-Con and 5th grade students will have the opportunity to create their innovation with a Micro:Bit Kit kits. We hope to have our first annual Tech-Con in the 2023-2024 school year. The free/open problem based inquiry provided by our Coding Innovations course was a hit because it allowed 5th grade students to create solutions to real-world problems that they wanted to solve. When students are self-motivated there are no limits to what they can accomplish and their enthusiasm sparks a passion in others. This is the beauty of free inquiry. As a result, all 2nd - 5th grade students now have the opportunity to develop a problem-solving product to present. This unit will impact all students involved because, not only are students more passionate about their own learning, they are developing higher order inquiry skills, knowledge, and an understanding of processes that will allow them to be successful in more rigorous STEM courses in the future.
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