Inquiry Based Learning

Group work happens in a variety of ways in my classroom, but the intention is always to have students become more aware of how they can be amazing resources for one another. During any group work students have designated roles to limit distractions and increase the accountability to themselves and one another. Collaboration can be in pairs or table groups depending on the activity and generally they will have to rate the involvement of their group mates during longer projects.

Through group work students are able to refine their own thinking with little to no direction from me and more input from their peers. This encourages independent thinking, problem solving abilities, and the utilization of critical thinking. During group work I assign roles for each group member to encourage accountability and students fill out a survey at the end of an assignment detailing the level of contribution for each member. I use this practice to better prepare students to build skills necessary to apply knowledge and our fundamental practices in their own space outside of my guidance.

I try to be very careful about how and how much technology my kids use in the classroom because it can be difficult to keep everyone on task when the internet is involved. There are three ways that most of the technology is used in my classroom and they are for the Nearpod platform, research projects ,and structured web quests during blended learning/small group days. Blended learning days allow me to pull small groups for half of the class while the rest of my students are engaging in a self paced web assignment. During this time I will rotate my kids in and out of the web assignment and my direct instruction to hone in on individualized challenges.

At my school students have a 1:1 Chromebook ratio so technology is readily available. Integration of that technology in strategic ways allows me to improve student research capabilities, improve their digital citizenship, and work with a targeted group of students while allowing the rest of the class the autonomy to be self paced and directed.

Labs and PBL are an amazing resource that allow my students to learn in a hands on environment while also using their literary and analytical skills to solve a real world problem and deepen their understanding of content.

Labs are a resource I like to use in the classroom because they encourage students to apply the knowledge we have practiced in class. As we work through a lab, students are building their analytical, practical, and conceptual scientific skill sets. Labs take what they have written about in class and have been assessed on through various methods and place them into a real world setting.

Projects are also a useful tool inc connecting the lives of students to the content I am teaching. Through projects students engaged with the surrounding community, their families, and community advocates to deepen their scientific connections to the world around us.