Getting Started with Inquiry

Course

Inquiry with Collaborative Classrooms [3:07]

A great way to approach your colleagues in collaboration is by using the word "repackaging" because that's a more user-friendly term than "change."

So, let's talk about inquiry with collaborative classrooms. The new standards are asking us to even have interdisciplinary collaboration, which isn't really new. If you're teaching long enough, you know that that was hot in the 80s, late 80s too. But basically, a great way to approach your colleagues is by using the word repackaging. Let's repackage research, repackage your instruction, because it's more user-friendly. "I'm not going to have to change everything I have to do." Teachers will be more apt to come and try this, if you don't have to upset their applecart.

An easy first step is, is anyone using a packet, remember the old packets? Go to them and say, "Guess what, I've heard that we need to change our research packets to inquiry-based models." The first step is really just inserting an essential question or they come to you with their packets, and they don't know that there should be collaborating. And you say to them, "Do you mind if I insert an essential a question at the beginning of their packet, so that it makes them think about all these facts, or what do you want them to do with all these facts?"

So, basically you're heightening the teacher's awareness that we need to get out of the paradigm of fact fetching and into the paradigm of getting kids to think. So, you can share that umbrella question thought with them and use an inquiry model, just grab one of the models, you can look up our WISE, W-I-S-E model, you can use the guided inquiry model, or the Stripling Inquiry Model. They're all very similar, they have different steps, but in every situation, it's a template or a road map for you to follow, so that you indeed have the kids uncovering and discovering.

Now, I got to tell you something, if you cheat the front-end of an inquiry model, if you cheat them of that wondering, where they get to ask some of the questions, you're actually cheating the student buy-in, you won't get as much student buy-in. If the teacher wants to define the discovery, the teacher is going to own it.

Likewise, if you cheat the back-end and you don't give them a chance to share their knowledge in that express stage, you're going to cheat the heightened awareness. Giving them an opportunity to share their knowledge actually validates the assignment, it increases the buy-in, it increases a validation, it increases the worth, the importance of the project.

So, that's just a skeleton and we encourage you to find a teacher where you can just repackage something, or insert an essential question on something they're already doing. Otherwise, plan from scratch and start from identifying the content area and essential question. But basically, that is the first step, it's just to find something. Blame it on the new standards. Blame it on some professional development that you're taking, "Hey, I am taking this professional development and I need an opportunity to try this. Could I try it with you?"

So, hopefully that gives you some ideas.

Repackaging for Student Engagement

Context:

Even with the time and opportunity to collaborate, some classroom teachers may be reluctant to try inquiry with their students. They may be anxious about what sounds like added work or wary of change in general. Jaeger recommends some strategies for introducing inquiry in these instances, starting with describing inquiry using the phrase "repackage." This sounds more accessible and possibly less intimidating.

Instructions:

Start the process of "repackaging" with a look inward, inspired by this article by Paige Jaeger, "Are You a Chameleon or a Leopard?" Read the article, and then take the challenge: "Identify your most lecture-like lesson and ask yourself, 'how can I repackage this for student engagement?'"

Resources:

Article

MLA Citation

Morris, Rebecca J. "Getting Started with Inquiry: Repackaging for Student Engagement." School Library Connection, October 2024, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/1988321?learningModuleId=1988313&topicCenterId=0.

Entry ID: 2122841

Additional Resources

Bibliography and Resources.

About the Author

Paige Jaeger, MLIS, is a prolific author and prominent educational consultant, delivering professional development at the local, state, and national levels on inquiry-based learning, the CCSS, and the C3 framework. Previously, she was a library administrator serving 84 school libraries in New York. Email: pjaeger@schoollibraryconnection.com. Twitter: @INFOlit4U.

MLA Citation

Jaeger, Paige. "Getting Started with Inquiry. Inquiry with Collaborative Classrooms [3:07]." School Library Connection, ABC-CLIO, November 2015, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/1988321?learningModuleId=1988313&topicCenterId=0.

View all citation styles

https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/1988321?learningModuleId=1988313&topicCenterId=0

Entry ID: 1988321