Maria Soto
My Classroom
I teach 3rd grade Bilingual, GT Math and Science. I have 21 students (12 GT, 9 Young Scholars). Their ages range between 8 and 9 years old. All of my students are considered English Language Learners.
The Lesson
This video is about how the Question Formulation Technique from "Make Just One Change: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions" by Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana was integrated into a 5E science lesson in my classroom.
Introduction
I introduced the concept of asking questions and what to do with a question by conducting a read-aloud of the book, "What Do You Do With An Idea" by Kobi Yamada. The story is about a boy who "found" an idea that begins to grow. At first he tries to hide it away, but soon discovers how wonderful it is. He began to share his idea and faced the judgements of the people of his town. As he shared his idea, it began to change and spread until it was everywhere. I used this book to talk about the questions we sometimes have about the natural world and the things we observe. We discussed how scientists sometimes begin in this very same way as they work to explain our world.
The Process
The next day, I introduced a 5E lesson as I would normally. We completed the engage which was a photo of a polar bear in the desert and simply asked if it would survive and why or why not.
We then moved into the explore portion of the lesson where the students observed different feet and discussed why they were different.
Then students participated in an activity where they put on gloves that had been webbed with tape and dipped their hands in a tub of water to feel the pull. They completed the explore with a discussion of they the feet might be different.
To end the lesson for the day, I added in the Question Formulation Technique to get the students thinking about the topic. I introduced the rules, and we engaged in the process, step by step. More information about the process can be found in the book, "Make Just One Change: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions" by Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana or at their website: TheRightQuestion.Org. We then continued the lesson as usual and students found they hadn't answered all of their questions. I allowed students some class time to do a little research.
Moving forward, students practiced the process by recording their questions in query books which I purchased from Amazon. We found that students in 2nd and 3rd grade did better when shown a picture rather than a statement, however, the student survey showed that they didn't seem to have a preference.
Debrief
This video is the debrief meeting that was conducted as part of the Wipro H-CCLS process.
H-CCLS Forms
Soto-HCCLS-Form1.pdfForm 1
img004.pdfForm 3 - Front - Capocci
img005.pdfForm 3 - Back - Capocci
H-CCLS Observation Form 3 - MariaFrom 3 - Force
Soto HCCLS Forms.pdfForm 3-Morales
HCCLS Form 4 - Soto.pdfFrom 4
HCCLS Form 5 - Soto.pdfForm 5
HCCLS Form 6 - Soto.pdfForm 6
Student Products
Group Work At The Beginning
Initially, I display a statement ("Plants and animals have structures that function to help them survive.") and guided students through the QFT to produce question posters as a group. They then used the questions to research the topic.
After discussing the process with my H-CCLS team, I switched to using pictures to stimulate questions. As you can see in the work below, students had trouble in the beginning with forming questions and the types of questions might not even be focused or related to the statement or picture. By the end, students were forming well phrased questions that were focused and began to use more open-ended questions than closed.
Individual Student Work - Before
Individual Student Work - After
Student Feeback
Presentation Reflection
I thought our presentation went well. I felt much more confident about our presentation after the first run-through with the whole group. The feedback we received was a little hard to hear, but in the end, I think it helped to make us better.
My area of strength is that I know our content very well. I am confident talking about our project, our process, my own experiences and our outcomes. An area of weakness for me must be that I talk too much! I want to say so much about what I think is pertinent and important that I perhaps share too much.
If I could do something differently, I would have made better notes about what I wanted to say or main points I wanted to cover and stick to them. I think it would have helped my team as well as myself. Maybe I should have discussed this with my team when we met. They did advise me to keep my statements brief and I really tried, alas, my statements were wordy.
I learned how to implement the Question Formulation Technique to help students learn to ask effective questions that drive intrinsic motivation to take their learning into their own hands. I learned how to help students to begin to think critically. I also learned a few tips and tricks to make the process accessible to 2nd and 3rd graders. Reflecting on the process, I will start the practice at the beginning of the year because we found that if students had started earlier in the year, they would have made more progress. Being deliberate about teaching students to ask questions that drive their learning and investigations not only helps them learn science more effectively, it helps them learn how to learn.
Post Paper
Wipro SEF 2nd Semester Post Reflection-Soto.pdf