Introduction and story of Question
For the introduction to my inquiry focus, I find it most useful to consider again the conclusions and questions with which I left my "Term 3" assignment. For reference, I have reproduced the "final analysis" I wrote below:
While teaching I was forced to ask questions and answer some. Questions are a central part of my lesson plans; included in each section of my lesson plans are sample questions I hope to ask in the course of instruction. I have realized, however, that I spend time thinking about questions I want to ask of my students more than I think about ways of eliciting questions from the students. This pattern can be noted in all of my lesson plans and in the observation notes of my literacy and social studies lessons. In reading Intentional Talk, How People Learn, and Doing History, I have come to realize that an inquiry based approach to instruction does not describe an I.R.E. approach but rather something much more focused on the depth of inquiry on the students’ part rather than solely my inquiry into their background knowledge.
Inquiry as a topic still confuses me. While in my planning and teaching I was able to see the importance of questions that I have for my students and in my reading and debriefs of my lessons I was able to see the even greater importance of the students’ inquiry, I still find myself struggling with how to aid students in getting their questions answered. How People Learn (Bransford, 1999) makes it especially clear to me that students construct their understandings of the world from their background knowledge and the reconciliation of that background knowledge with new experiences and information. This concept I can see taking place in a student’s struggle to take their knowledge of expanded form and place value to consider the action of regrouping during multi-digit subtraction in a new way, but I know that a student likely learned about expanded form and place value from a math text book and teacher. I cannot imagine any of my 4th graders arriving at such conclusions through their own directed inquiry, and because of this my view of my original question has changed somewhat.
Through teaching my lessons I have arrived at the temporary conclusion that there are things teachers must simply transfer to their students. It is acceptable for me to teach a student the parts of a play explicitly (characters, plot, main idea, etc.) so long as a student participates actively in that lesson, but I must continue to make the student’s questions central. My question then becomes what types of questions (both on the students’ part and on my own) drive deeper understanding? How can I help as an instructor to guide a student’s inquiry to a place that is instructive for them without depriving them of access to instruction they need to do well on standardized testing and other similar measures?
Some small things I have done in order to avoid “telling” students information is teaching them how to use tools that will guide them to the information they need. In this way, I can allow students to have enough access to information without merely “transferring” my knowledge to them. An example of this asking students to use the dictionary and modeling my own use of the dictionary when I find a word I have not seen before. Through this interaction a student can gain the answer to their simple question and gain the ability to answer those questions more easily in the future. This, however, I do not consider deep inquiry; more than anything, I consider it a way to get those simple questions out of deep instruction time to allow time to focus more pointedly on meaningful construction of knowledge.
Intentional Talk outlines talk moves specifically for math discussions, but I have found it useful to think about discussions in any subject. In many ways, the talk moves are more about considering, describing, and analyzing thoughts than they are about math. Having discussions where students participate as more than callers to a switchboard (me) means students are doing more of the intellectual work than they might be used to doing, and I wonder if that also means they may find themselves asking more questions, too. I have found that most of the questions students ask me fall into the “information you have that I do not” category than the knowledge-constructing category. That is, when writing sample character sketches students asked me more often about how to spell words than about what makes a character interesting. This, I have an inkling, has more to do with the type of instruction they typically receive than their deep, personal interest in spelling. Another example of student inquiry was during my science lesson: students had proportionally more questions about the why and how of their aquarium than about detail information like spelling. This, I imagine, has to do with exposure to interesting and engaging material that models their world. There was still “this plant is called x” or “plants put out oxygen” types of memorization, but that type of information passing was less central because the lesson was more engaging. We spent more time thinking about what the students wondered about relationships and energy than about spelling. Moving into a norm of discussion as a time to hash out constructed knowledge rather than a time to simply acquire information has become a goal of mine through the sequence of lessons in term 3. It is a goal because I believe students should feel empowered to construct their own knowledge and be masters of their own minds, but I realize it is no easy task.
When thinking about my terms 4 and 5, I am left with a feeling of the fact that creating a space that nurtures interesting, instructive, constructive questions both of and by the students is monumentally difficult. Indeed, I have read many articles and books that touch upon the importance of inquiry this semester, and I still have this question and concern. I plan to continue to hash out questions I plan to ask students as a part of my lesson writing process, and I plan to focus on making sure I have asked them at appropriate times (because the hectic implementation of lessons occasionally has led to the omission of a couple of them). However, I am still struck with how difficult it is to construct an environment where students generate meaningful questions or even separate a meaningful question from a largely uninteresting one.
How People Learn (1999) instructs me to honor students’ prior knowledge and monitor their changing constructions of knowledge throughout a lesson and year. Educative Assessment (1998) highlights the importance of making assessments authentic and instructive (which I take as inquiry based and, often, student led). Intentional Talk (2014) provides tools to shape discussions in ways that highlight student knowledge and encourage students to engage with not just their content but each other. Even as I read these texts, however, I am left wondering how to elicit inquiry from my students. I imagine that the answer lies somewhere in more experience listening to and knowing children well, more focus on authentic assignments, and more work on a classroom culture that values their questions and expects of them true intellectual work. As I write them, they feel like buzzwords rising from a sea of academic jargon, but I hope to keep my questions central as I dive into thinking about how to elicit questions from and ask questions of young minds.
Bransford, J. (1999). How people learn brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
Kazemi, E., & Hintz, A. (2014). Intentional Talk How to Structure and Lead Productive Mathematical Discussions. Portland: Stenhouse.
Levstik, L., & Barton, K. (2005). Doing history: Investigating with children in elementary and middle schools (3rd ed.). Mahwah, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates.
Wiggins, G. (1998). Educative assessment: Designing assessments to inform and improve student performance. San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass.
In moving forward with my "Term 5," I have found most of my questions about how to empower students to ask deeper questions and embrace inquiry still remain. I find myself grappling with the same concerns about student learning. As I will demonstrate in this project, I wonder how the overall environment's (teachers, administrators, siblings, parents, classmates, etc.) conception of what education's purpose is influences students' abilities to embrace an inquiry stance. Rather than trying to thrust students headfirst into a fully inquiry driven classroom (which would likely make the school principal's and my classroom mentor's hearts stop momentarily) I have decided to study the status quo and the potential for small moves towards inquiry within it. My question, therefore, is: what does learning look like in a direct instruction privileging environment, and what might learning look like with small moves towards an inquiry stance in place?