Final Reflection...

1. Take some time to think about your topic. Now write down what you know about it.

My knowledge of Inquiry Based Learning started off at ‘quite a bit’, however I feel as though it has grown to ‘a great deal.’ At the beginning of this learning I was very familiar with and competent at using the Information Model by Capra and Ryan. This is a model I have been referring to since the beginning of my teaching career and I have used across all year levels from Year 3 - Year 10. 

I then became familiar with Kuhlthau’s ISP earlier this year during the Learning Hubs subject and have started to incorporate this model into my teaching and learning. Reflection plays a huge role in my current teaching pedagogy, however after researching this unit and ILA, I can really see it’s importance and have found a range of new ways to incorporate it more effectively. Reflection, feelings and thoughts are such a vital role within the inquiry process, no matter what model you are basing your teaching pedagogy on.

What is Inquiry Based Learning to me?

• Students undertaken their own journey
• Levels of facilitation and guidance
• Posing questions
• Collaborating with others
• Interviewing others
• Independence
• Scaffolding
• Gaining new information
• Gaining new skills
• Seeking
• Real life learning - authentic
• Making connections
• Reflection
• Feelings and attitudes
• Active learning
• Analysing - data analysis
• Synthesising
• Lifelong learning
• Critical thinking

2. How interested are you in this topic?  Circle the answer that best matches your interest. 

Not at all      not much     quite a bit   a great deal   

3. How much do you know about this topic?   Circle the answer that best matches how much you know.

Nothing      not much     quite a bit   a great deal  

4. Thinking back on your project, what did you find find easy to do? Please list as many things as you like.

The easiest part of this task was working with the students and classroom teacher on the ILA. The students started off slowly and found the task of researching quite difficult, however the longer the students participated in learning experience, the more excited they were about the individual projects. The students were not use to having so much freedom and making decisions on their own, so watching them grow through the inquiry process was very rewarding. 

Towards the end of creating the blog, I really started to enjoy creating and reflecting via this presentation method. In the beginning, I found the blod to be quite daunting and I viewed it as an extra, however the longer it went on, the more I started to enjoy it and I was keen to explore the multiple functions of blogging. After viewing my finished project, I can see that I started to embrace it after my first couple of entries. I also really enjoyed reading through other people’s blogs and I can now see how blogging is such an effective learning tool for all learners - children and adults.

5.   Thinking back on your project, what did you find most difficult to do? Please list as many things as you like.

• Starting the task
• Time management - with full time work 
• Breaking down the information
• Synthesising the information - I had an information overload!
• Defining Part A - I did not synthesis enough in this part of the task, I did more of a  basic literature review
• The Blog - in the beginning

 6. What did you learn in doing this research project? Please list as many things as you like.

• A greater understanding of Kuhlthau’s ISP
• A greater understanding and knowledge of ‘inquiry’
• How to create a Blog
• How to screen dump on a Mac
• How to attach You Tube clips to a Blog
• The vital role of incorporating reflection into students learning
• How to use the questionaire results to guide future learning
• How to use the SLIM toolkit
• How to narrow boolean search terms
• How to use Google Scholar and Boolify
• How to use the topic sentence structure at the beginning of writing

Let's get Graphic!

My final searching for this Blog involved looking up a range of graphic organisers to compare to the Kuhlthau Model. I like the basic nature of this graphic organiser for primary aged students and how the questions are set out. I would use the idea of this organiser with the students, however I would add questions about relfection, thoughts and feelings, to combine those aspect of Kuhlthau's model. It is the reflection component that is taking out-dated research models into 21st century learning.

This diagram displays the importance of the balance between lecturing the learners versus them teaching each other and practicing their learning by actually doing. It gives a clear visual to teachers about the retention rate of learners and therefore we are required to adapt out teaching and learning methods to accommodate this. Love this visual!

Give a child a fact... they'll pass the test tomorrow...

How 'COOL' is 'BOOL'IFY?

I have heard some many great reports about Boolify, however I had not used it until starting my research for the ILA - it is now going to be a regular tool in my library lessons with the students and teachers, as well as in my own learning! It is such a fantastic resource for those who are visual learners, and a wonderful way for younger students to build their boolean search terms.


http://www.boolify.org


In my own Boolify searching, I built the terms - "Researching" and "Countries" and "Primary school" and "Inquiry Based Learning" and "Geography"


As I began the searching, I received hundreds of thousands of results, however with each new search term added, I could see the results narrowing into a much more user-friendly amount. I love this feature within Boolify, as it would allow the students to also see their searches narrowing and therefore becoming more managable. I ended up with 191 results and from here I was able to sift through and bookmark sites that looked relevant. 


One site I found through this searching was http://www.primaryschool.com.au.


It provides free sites, lesson plans, software, text, videos and teacher reference materials for all key learning areas, housed in the appropriate year levels. 

The Quest on Questia

Questia is (apparently) the world's largest online library, which provides access to academic resources including books, encyclopedias, articles and journals. It was purchased by our College at the beginning of this year for all Year 6 - 12 students as a subscription, so all students had access to a more 'academic' bank of resources.


This extensive database certainly meets the demand of academic materials required for our Senior Years students, however it is most certainly not useful for the younger years. After almost completing my research for the ILA, I thought Questia may provide some resources to aid my own learning at tertiary level.


http://www.questiaschool.com


The school subscription for this database gives all staff their own logon and password and hosts such features as searching the library, creating bookshelves to store resources for personal use and student access, housing lessons plans and assessments, managing and checking student access, using lexiles and creating citations.


Questia is searched through in much the same manner as Google and Google Scholar, using Boolean search terms in quotation marks.


I began my searching with the broad term - "Guided Inquiry"- This search led me to over 35,000 resources - eeek!


I then moved onto the search terms - "Inquiry in education" - This once again led me to far too many results to sift through (48,876)


From here I narrowed my boolean search terms to "Inquiry Learning" and "Primary Education" - This result gave me 144 results (books, articles and journals), however the when reading through these resources they tended to still remain quite broad, general and philosophical. 


Finally, I used the terms "Inquiry Learning" and "Primary Teaching" - This gave me 17 results, three of which I added to my Learning Nexus Bookshelf, to be read through in more detail, in preparation for Part B of the ILA Task.

I would highly recommended a subscription to this database for Teacher-Librarians in a secondary or tertiary setting. The resources available provide the users with a broad academic range of resources to access in their full text (as opposed to snippets) whilst not having to physically visit a public/state library. It is a wonderful resource for schools and universities in remote areas or with limited funding.