Motivating Teachers and Students [8:22]

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About

Learn ways to motivate your teachers and students to engage in inquiry
Learn how inquiry enables students to develop a stance of agency and self-confidence
Learn the skills need to enable your students to develop an inquiry stance

Transcript

The next section and the last section, really, is talking about motivation and think about the talking points that you're going to use now to motivate teachers and students to engage in inquiry. So I'm going to give you a chance to think a little more deeply about that in terms of a couple of questions. And I'm going to ask you to respond in the chat, if you would. I know that's hard to do a lot in the chat, but again, we're saving the chat and you'll be able to access these answers even if they kind of fly by. The first question is, how does inquiry enable students to develop a stance of agency and self-confidence? Now, to me, that's the ultimate thing that I really want, is that all of our students will develop the self-confidence and the agency to be in charge of their own learning and to share with others.

So I'm ready for your comments in chat. How this inquiry enable students to develop a stance where they have agency and self-confidence. Oh, personal curiosity, that's wonderful. Ownership. Oh, and I love what David said, "affirms the value of their own interests and questions," that is so important. And that's what inquiry does, it enables students to connect themselves to their learning and recognize that they have a stake in it, they have prior knowledge, they have attitudes, and that matters. They become stakeholders, wonderful. Oh, see, I love that, Laura, that there's not a single correct answer and they can explore what interests them.

Now, let me tell you a downside to that you may confront. In my experience, some of the top students, the highest achievers, have the most trouble developing an inquiry stance, because they are used to finding the right answer, that there being a right answer, and they've got it. They learned that. They got it. Check that off. Great. So inquiry does two things to them, first of all, it says there's not just one right answer, perhaps, and you have to find the evidence and justify and document why you think this is the better answer. The second thing it does is that inquiry doesn't end. And so it's not like you can check it off. And the highest achievers sometimes want to say, been there, done that, finished that. Moving on. So, it's an issue that you will have to deal with. And give special care sometimes to the highest achievers, so that they are rewarded in the struggle and not just for one right answer.

I love the idea of ownership and responsibility for their own learning. That's exactly what we're talking about with the agency and self-confidence. So here's the second question. What skills will enable students to move to an inquiry stance? Now, David just mentioned an attitude, and so maybe you want to be broadening a little bit, it's not just skills, but it's also things like perseverance and resilience that are important. And so think about both skills and attitudes, I think. Oh, I love the multiple perspectives and the whole idea of being able to make choices is an important empowerment skill. You know, it's interesting, we don't ever teach kids how to make choices, but that's a part of inquiry, is making choices. And of course, what we know is that sometimes they're guided choices, it's not just thrown out, we give them this or this, but just developing their own criteria for what's important is important. To realize that their options matter and the whole idea of student-directed. And so being able to be metacognitive at the same time that they are pursuing inquiry is very important. And I think all of you will recognize, and you're alluding to it here, a sense of satisfaction, that is, it's a social emotional skill. And we need to think about inquiry as inclusive of social and emotional development and cultural development and keeping those skills, and attitudes in mind and building them into inquiry does make a much richer inquiry experience for our students. Yeah, I love education isn't something you can finish. Maybe the perfectionist rather than the high achievers and absolutely, that's probably what I was talking about. Yes, I know the right answer. I'm going to get it and I need to have an identity of all of a good learner.

So we need to pay attention to how every kid is approaching learning. Questioning is essential and, you know, we pretty much beat that out of kids by the time they're in middle school. So honoring their questioning and enabling them to keep working on questions and to keep asking questions even in the middle of their inquiry is really important. I think that whole idea of grit—there is actually a body of research that is talking about the importance of grit. And we're talking about lifelong learning and what will enable our students to succeed beyond the school walls, both in their own lives and in further education or careers. A growth mindset and that is certainly related to stance, a willingness to figure out, well, what do I need in order to learn and how am I going to do it? and what skills do I need to work on and learn and get better at. An open mindedness to there are other perspectives. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could get all of our students to develop that in school and then carry that out to the world?

Activities

Motivating Teachers and Students

Now comes the challenge—motivating teachers and students to engage in inquiry! It is always good to have a few talking points ready to go should the discussion arise.

RESOURCES:

Handout

Course Packet

REFLECT & PRACTICE:

In this lesson, Barbara offers two questions to the audience to help the creation of dialog around engaging in inquiry. Using page 13 of the course packet, take a look at the two questions and write down your ideas about inquiry and how it helps students. To see how attendees of the retreat responded, see the Chat transcript handout in the Resources above.

Entry ID: 2267513

Additional Resources

Bibliography.

Select Citation Style:

MLA Citation

Stripling, Barbara K. "Embracing an Inquiry Stance. Motivating Teachers and Students [8:22]." School Library Connection, ABC-CLIO, August 2021, schoollibraryconnection.com/content/course/2266993?learningModuleId=2266980&topicCenterId=2247903.

Chicago Citation

Stripling, Barbara K. "Embracing an Inquiry Stance. Motivating Teachers and Students [8:22]." School Library Connection video. August 2021. https://schoollibraryconnection.com/content/course/2266993?learningModuleId=2266980&topicCenterId=2247903.

APA Citation

Stripling, B. K. (2021, August). Embracing an inquiry stance. Motivating teachers and students [8:22] [Video]. School Library Connection. https://schoollibraryconnection.com/content/course/2266993?learningModuleId=2266980&topicCenterId=2247903

https://schoollibraryconnection.com/content/course/2266993?learningModuleId=2266980&topicCenterId=2247903

Entry ID: 2266993