Inquiry Mindset: Types of Student Inquiry (Including my "Global Interactions" unit)

Courtesy of Trevor Mackenzie

This chapter challenged me to focus on the types of inquiry as well as to reflect on when I have used inquiry in the past. What has gone wrong? How could the graphic help plan inquiry in the future?

In the past, I have tried to do too much, too fast. I have pushed myself too hard and expected too much of my students, who were not familiar with the inquiry process. I have also tried to assign too much to my students who were skilled researchers, though did not have the independent skills to be able to carry out an inquiry completely on their own.

I tend to dive into the deep end when I try something new. Sometimes this works out, but the vast majority of the time, I realize that I needed more planning. This summer I am taking advantage of the time that I have to plan ahead and I am trying hard not to bite off more than I can chew.

For example, in trying inquiry in the past, I have tried to make a whole inquiry unit without enough time to think it through. I ended up ending the unit with a traditional test, despite the inquiry that my students were doing. They weren't producing an end project and were really only analyzing the essential question and completing the research. Many students noticed this and asked me why they were doing a bunch of work that didn't go anywhere. I didn't have a good answer! I just hadn't planned the unit thoroughly enough to have a reason for all of the work that they were doing. Sure, they were practicing research skills, but without an end project, this seemed like a giant waste of time for them. I can't blame them for that perspective.

During the school closure this year, I had a student teacher. We continued distance learning online but gave students a much lighter workload. With the extra time that would have been spent planning traditional lessons, she and I worked through an inquiry unit. We took the time (the whole quarter, actually) to work on the unit bits at a time. It was great to have someone to bounce ideas off of and to bring forward some excellent ideas of her own. In addition, we took our time and planned out all parts of the unit, starting with the historical thinking skill and its corresponding standard (Wisconsin State Social Studies Standards):

Causation

Standard SS.Hist1: Wisconsin students will use historical evidence for determining cause and effect.

These are the applicable sub-standards:

SS.Hist1.a.h

Evaluate multiple events from different perspectives using primary and secondary sources, and analyze intended and unintended causes from both long- and short-term perspectives; evaluate how different groups and individuals contributed to the event or cause.

SS.Hist1.b.h

Evaluate multiple events from different perspectives using primary and secondary sources, and analyze intended and unintended effects from both long- and short-term perspectives; evaluate how different groups and individuals contributed to the effect.

To narrow down the focus (as these standards are whopping), we chose to focus on using primary and secondary sources to analyze cause and effect and evaluate how different groups and individuals contributed to the causes and effects. We decided against focusing on short- and long-term perspectives, as we could focus on perspective in another unit. Tackling too much during one unit can lead to overwhelm, confusion, and possible failure of the inquiry, and we knew we needed to start smaller.

Then we wrote some compelling questions to narrow the focus to the time period under study, considering European exploration. 

What made European exploration possible? (Innovation, motivations)

What impact did European exploration have on Europeans? on the people of the Americas? on Africans?

Here are some of our other learning targets, though these will have to be narrowed down to help our focus:

Unit Overview: Glocal Interactions (1450-1750) 

Part one (included in the above link): European Exploration

Part two (not completed yet): Empires (Asia, Africa, the Americas) -- Might be taught before European exploration, as that is the logical chronology.

We decided that writing a MelCon essay and/or completing an exam would be the best way to end this particular unit. Though these are more traditional approaches, again, we felt that introducing too many new tasks at one time would simply be overwhelming. It's better to focus on one new thing at a time until the students are used to it, but more importantly until the teachers are used to it. We teachers have to be prepared and confident in teaching the tasks before we can expect students to be comfortable with them.

We then decided to focus on the impact of European exploration on the people of the Americas and Europeans, as we will have a separate unit to discuss African empires and the impact of globalization on the diverse people of Africa.

MelCon Essay Organizer

MelCon Essay Rubric 

As this unit will be used in the classroom, I am not prepared to provide the questions on the exam here (though my students will have them in advance to prepare), as I am not sure if the questions will change. Essentially, the exam includes questions about the following:

• Continuity and change during the Age of Exploration
• Contributions of individuals during the Age of Exploration
• Causes and effects of the Columbian Exchange

This unit tends to be very Eurocentric, and looking at the unit at a glance, it certainly seems Eurocentric. I can assure you that the resources used will provide a variety of viewpoints concerning exploration as well as provide a well-rounded idea of how various groups reacted to exploration. My goal is to approach empires such as the Maya, Aztec, Inca, as well as the nations of North America with the understanding that they were successful, independent, sovereign, and strong populations. The peoples of the Americas were incredibly diverse. In addition, they did not just step aside and let the Europeans take over. Often, this part of history (at least in "western civilization") is taught with the story that Europeans waltzed in with their superior weapons and cunning and took over without a fight. This is not true, as there are many factors as to why Europeans were able to colonize. We will approach these in our daily lessons, though many of those lessons have not been developed yet. If you have suggestions for me, I am willing to hear them! The last thing that I want to do is teach students, yet again, the same old narrative about Europeans taking the land and now here we are in the United States, as it is a highly inaccurate portrayal that leaves out many voices.

I also find terms such as "Columbian Exchange" to be problematic, but I am unsure of how to approach this. So far, when teaching this concept, we go into a discussion about why the term received this name, and have a mini-debate about whether it is a "good" name for the exchange of goods during this time period. I find that this is a very interesting conversation.

Inquiry Mindset: The Inquiry Cycle

This chapter focused on the Inquiry Cycle and challenged me to think of ways in which I could organically complete an inquiry in my classes. These are some possibilities for my classes:

Economics:

• How has globalization changed the world?
• Is capitalism the best system?

Psychology:

• Nature v. Nurture

Sociology:

• How does discrimination impact our community? (racism, sexism, ageism, etc.)
• How have I been socialized?

US History:

• Why do people protest?

World History:

• How has communication changed the world?
• Was European exploration beneficial or detrimental?
• What makes an empire?
• Why do kings have power?

Inquiry Mindset: 10 Reasons to Use Inquiry Based Learning

Courtesy of Trevor Mackenzie

This chapter of Inquiry Mindset focused on 10 reasons to use inquiry-based learning, and challenged me to describe how I do well on any one of the ten. Though this is valuable, I feel like it is more valuable for me to note my goals for this year and future years, and how I hope to reach those goals.

Teach Grit, Perseverance, Growth Mindset, and Self-Regulation

Though I find issue with some of these terms due to lack of equity (How is teaching grit going to help a student who regularly faces systemic racism or discrimination based on socioeconomic status? Grit won't get rid of racist or discriminatory policies and practices; it will only teach students to ignore them and then the problem is not solved. But I digress...more on this in a future blog post.), I do believe that self-regulation is important.  I want my students to be able to reflect, revise, and view mistakes as "opportunities to be better."

Make Research Meaningful and Develop Strong Research Skills

I am on this path already, but my main goal this year is to focus each unit around a compelling question. This will help my students see what we are trying to find out, as well as why it is important that we conduct research in order to learn about it. Every single learning activity will apply to the compelling question and I will avoid busy work for the sake of having a grade in the grade book. The learning is more important to me.

Deepen Understanding to Go Beyond Memorizing Facts and Content

I know the big ideas that I strive to teach my students, but my students can't always articulate what the big ideas are. I need to communicate this more clearly and make sure that they truly understand it.

Fortify the Importance of Asking Good Questions

I hadn't heard of the terms "open" and "closed" questions until I was at a standards workshop this January. I had always known the difference between an open-ended question and a yes-or-no question, but I hadn't heard of it being described this way before. It made so much sense! Teaching this distinction to my students can help them come up with research questions that will help them dig deeper, rather than questions that can be answered by the first result in a simple Google Search.

Enable Students to Take Ownership Over Their Own Learning and to Reach Their Own Goals

The standards are goals that the state and I have for my students, but students need to learn how to set their own goals as well. I'm not sure how to do this yet, but I have toyed with the idea of student portfolios where each page is a power standard (not all standards will be reflected, as this will simply be overwhelming) and the students post a certain number of artifacts on each page to show what they have learned. Goal-setting can be oriented around this.

Solve the Problems of Tomorrow in the Classrooms of Today

I am striving to make my classes more authentic. I will be more intentional about including the 4 C's (communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking) in my classroom teaching and activities.

Inquiry Mindset: The Inquiry Teacher

Courtesy of Trevor Mackenzie

I have embarked on a new adventure in reading Trevor Mackenzie and Rebecca Bathurst-Hunt's book, Inquiry Mindset: Nurturing the Dreams, Wonders, & Curiosities of Our Youngest Learners. Over the next few blog posts, I will be taking the time to reflect on what I am reading and how it applies to my practice as a teacher. This first reflection will allow me to take a deep look at my teaching practice and rate myself on the Inquiry Teacher continuum: Novice (1) to Master teacher (5).

Inquiry Teachers Are Playful

• Playfulness: 3/5
• I am playful through gamification. I have made my courses into yearlong games, though there is a lot I would like to change about this. I have used Classcraft in the past and some students really like it because they get a character and they can earn points, but I have found that I am not as passionate about it as I would like. If I lose enthusiasm, students lose enthusiasm. I think it's just a lot to pile onto my daily responsibilities, so in order to remedy this, I want to scale back instead of getting rid of it entirely. I have been thinking about making each unit into a sort of game with their own mini-games. I have no idea how I will do this yet, but it's been bouncing around in my head! Incorporating breakouts and little bits of trivia into my classes has been playful and I would like to incorporate more of this. This is a priority, but first I must focus on my curriculum (which has been changing due to a new set of Social Studies standards).
• Cultivating a Natural Love for Learning: 2/5
• I don't believe that I have been great at this in the past. My lessons tend to resort to simple handouts most of the time. I don't want to make excuses, but teaching four different courses has made it difficult to focus on creating fun, engaging lessons. Over the summer I have been working on this already by focusing my units around at least one central research (essential) question. For example, my 1950s unit has the following essential question: "Were the 1950s a decade of conformity or dissent?" Lessons will all be connected to the research question and students will be able to easily see those connections. Organizing my courses this way will also allow us to delve deeper into student interests (Elvis, for example) and help students realize that history can be fun to learn about, therefore reigniting that love for learning.
• Playful Pedagogy: 5/5
• I am always trying new things in my classes. Sometimes this works out for the better, but other times they are complete failures. What matters is that my students are aware of this and know that sometimes things don't go as planned, which is ok! That's how we learn. I like to think that my students take this to heart and realize that it's ok to take risks, as long as you learn from your mistakes.

Inquiry Teachers Teach Slowly

• Teaching Slowly: 1/5
• I am horrible at this. I always move too fast. I've had students tell me so, and I still forged ahead. This needs to change. I have been so married to teaching everything that could possibly be known about a topic or time period, and that is just overwhelming for students. With the new inquiry model that I am working through, I think that this problem will be eased, if done correctly. Going back to my 1950s example, I can provide students with many different topics to learn about (such as Beat poets) without prescribing them 10 of them. Students don't need to know about all of the Beat poets that exist; they just need to understand how they fit into the historical context of the 1950s, and what their historical impact was. Instead of trying to cram a ton of information into my students' heads, I can make a short list and allow them to choose one or two topics to learn about in the context of our overarching question (conformity or dissent?). This will allow us to slow down.
• Covering Content vs. Helping Students Become Master Learners: 1/5
• On the same vein, I have been terrible at this. With help from the new Social Studies standards, which focus almost exclusively on skills, I can shift my focus to helping students become master learners. Once equipped with the skills, the coverage of content will come more naturally.
• Letting Learning Unfold at a Pace that Empowers My Learners: 1/5
• Again, I've been moving too fast and students have told me so. This causes some students to shut down when they see their to do list grow exponentially over time. I will focus less on having an assignment to do every day (holy cow, overload!) and instead I will focus my classes on the process of acting like an historian in order to answer our overarching question. Not all students will be able to answer the question at the same pace, so the time in class will be spent essentially researching instead of completing handout after handout.

Inquiry Teachers Know Their Curriculum

• How Well I Know the Curriculum: 5/5
• I have spent countless hours, days, weeks, etc. poring through the new Social Studies standards, unpacking them, and determining what exactly students need to know in order to master the skills. I have a very firm grasp on what is important for them to learn now, much more than last year, even.
• Cultivating a Deeper Understanding: 3/5
• This hasn't been so great in the past, but I have been working on ways to allow students to complete more independent research (if they are ready) or more guided research in order to answer our essential questions. By connecting each unit with at least one essential question, students have a clear goal, but it is up to them to find the evidence to support their answer to the question. By allowing students choice, they are more likely to delve deeper into concepts. By giving them a goal, they know exactly what they are trying to answer, and can become more focused on relevant research. Like I mentioned though, this depends on the student. Some students will need more help from the teacher, but I will be there to help them understand the how and why rather than just the who, where, and what of major historical concepts.
• Connecting Learner Passions, Interests, and Wonders: 3/5
• When using handouts, this was almost impossible unless students were directly interested in the content being covered in the handout. By using essential questions, I feel like students can choose a course of research that interests them and they can focus their efforts on that. As long as they are working to answer the essential question, the research that they complete could be completely up to them.
• Sense of Freedom Concerning Curriculum: 5/5
• I feel very free to use the curriculum to cover concepts that are deeply important. The old standards were very prescriptive in telling exactly what content students needed to know and did not focus much on skills. Our new standards are the opposite. As long as you cover the essential time periods and cover the vocabulary that is directly stated in the standards, you can direct the course of your class in any direction that allows students to master the skills. I'm very excited about this of course because my students can follow their interests and still master the skills needed to be historians.

Inquiry Teachers Know Their Students

• How Well I Know My Students: 4/5
• I know my students very well for the most part. I start the beginning of the year with a fun activity in which I get to know their interests, passions, hobbies, strengths, areas of improvement, etc. Over the course of the year, I learn more and more about them. It really helps that I teach in a small school. However, there are students that are quieter that I don't know so much about. I will make this more of a priority this year, as learning about my students can help me to guide them toward their interests in historical content.
• How Well I Know My Students' Learning Needs: 4/5
• I am quite familiar with the learning needs of my students. Putting this knowledge into practice has been difficult with the traditional method of teaching that I have previously employed because it's very "one-size-fits-all," so this will require some shifting when we transfer to a model based more on inquiry. Some students will need much more support in an inquiry model, so I will have to take it slow and be intentional about making sure that students feel comfortable and supported.
• Building Relationship and Trust: 2/5
• I have struggled with this. Relationship and trust are incredibly important in student-teacher and student-student interactions. I believe that my students trust me, but student-student relationships are another story. In an inquiry model, debate, discussion, and understanding are incredibly important. In order to make sure that we build relationship and trust, I need to make it clear to students that being wrong is ok. Not knowing something is ok. Disagreeing with someone is ok. The important part is that we know how to approach another person that we disagree with. I have built up some strategies to help teach students the skills necessary for constructive debate. Skills like these will help us lift each other up and continue the conversation instead of tearing each other down and destroying trust.

Inquiry Teachers Reflect and Revise as They Go

• Reflecting and Revising: 5/5
• If this blog is any indication, I reflect quite often. I don't always post my reflections, but I am always thinking about what I can do better in the future. If something doesn't go well, I make note of it for next time. Do I revise it? Do I scrap it? It depends on how poorly it went. I also ask my students for input. What did they like? What didn't they like? Why do they think a lesson went poorly? Was it something I did, or was it something the students could improve upon? I have found that this has been very helpful for me and it also shows students that teachers are not infallible. We can all improve.
• Tinkering with My Practice Both Inside and Outside of Learning: 5/5
• I couldn't count all of the times that I have completely stopped an activity or completely changed the rules for an activity. If something isn't working, why push it? Fix what is wrong, and then try again. Or scrap it completely if you need more time to think! This just comes with the territory of trying new things in class. By using digital tools as well, I can quite easily change the wording of directions if they are confusing, or fix typos. I do this all of the time and I let my students see me do it. This is incredibly important to me, as my students can see that we all make mistakes, and it's perfectly ok!
• How My Wonderings and Observations Guide My Practice: 
• I didn't give myself a rating for this, as I'm not sure exactly how I do this, or if I do this at all! I do observe my students and use those observations to support them during the learning process, but I don't think that I necessarily incorporate my wonderings or really let students see me wonder. I need to include more of this, as curiosity is incredibly important and should not be hidden away.

Inquiry Teachers Go Outside to Come Back Inside

• Going Outside to Come Back Inside: 1/5
• I would love to incorporate more resources from our community and beyond, but I have found this difficult for a variety of reasons. One is time. During the school year I do all I can to not drown, so finding learning opportunities outside of class feel impossible. This can be remedied by making it a priority to find at least one learning opportunity outside of the classroom per quarter. This could be a talk from a member of our local historical society or from an American Indian representative. This could be a field trip to a local historical site. Or, barring the ability to travel or bring someone in, this could be a virtual field trip. There are so many ways to make this a possibility that I find it shameful that I haven't done more of it.
• Connected Educator: 5/5
• I am incredibly connected to other educators. I have a great PLN within my school (including with the English department, as many skills overlap) as well as with the global community. Twitter has been an excellent way for me to remain connected with others, be inspired, get resources, and ask questions. I have also taken part in book clubs and interactive learning opportunities with educators online to improve my content knowledge and pedagogical practice.
• PLN of Critical Friends: 5/5
• I have an excellent group of colleagues at my school who listen to and answer my questions, offer resources, and overall just challenge me to be a better teacher. We push each other to stick with approaches that are difficult to implement but we know are good for our students, regardless of the backlash (such as standards-based grading, which has been a huge point of contention between students/parents and teachers). We learn so much from each other and I am so grateful to have them. We have also been working on some cross-disciplinary approaches, which have been abandoned over the years.

Inquiry Teachers Are Curious

• Being a Curious Teacher and Sharing My Curiosity: 3/5
• I am a naturally curious human being, so that would be a 5/5. The difference is that I don't show my curiosity to my students, which is a big part of this. I can be more intentional about showing my students what I am wondering about and we can work together to try to understand it. This would allow me to model these skills for my students as well.
• Actively Modeling My Questions: 1/5
• Yikes. I need to do this. I have so many questions about a lot of things (and sometimes I can't find the answers), but I do not model this to my students often. I think starting the school year with a compelling question and working through it with my students can show them the process, spark some interest, and perhaps show them how to find the answers and what to do if we can't find the answers.

Inquiry Teachers Are Passionate

• Being a Passionate Educator: 3/5
• My passion often wanes as I get stressed, which I can't stand. I have first been working on my mental health and finding strategies to ease my mind, as well as prioritizing so I don't take too much on at any given time. I do show my passion though when we are covering topics in class, as I like to include little bits of trivia that interest my students. For example, when talking about Ancient Egypt and Ancient Rome, I use a couple of videos that go into hygiene and beauty standards. Students find this type of information so interesting, as it's not normally what would be covered in history class. I'm always looking for fun tidbits of "did you know" type information to share and pique interest.
• Demonstrating Love for Learning: 4/5
• I do talk to my students about the learning that I am doing. I talk about what I learned at conferences or seminars (when it's historically related; though sometimes I do share about pedagogical science, such as the benefits of sketchnoting). Some show interest and some don't, but at least they hear that I am a continual learner and I enjoy doing so. I also challenge my students to find little facts that I haven't heard before, and, here's the kicker... prove to me that they are true! Students love to stump the teacher and help you learn something about your subject that you hadn't learned before.
• Being a Lifelong Learner: 5/5
• I love to learn. In fact, I make a schedule every day and block "learning time" into it. It doesn't matter what I learn about during that time, whether it's photography tips, gardening skills, baby-led weaning (a new interest of mine), historical content, or pedagogy. Being intentional about learning allows me to embrace my passions and hone my skills.
• Finding Joy in My Role as a Teacher: 4/5
• Teaching is a difficult profession and it sometimes overwhelms me, hence the 4/5. Other than that, I love teaching. I have never missed it more when schools closed this last March due to coronavirus. I had been out on maternity leave since January and I was absolutely looking forward to going back to school. I was heartbroken (seriously... it sounds dramatic, but it's true!) that I wasn't going to be able to go back to teaching (as I knew it) until the fall. We still stuck with online learning, but the staff as a whole agrees that that could have gone better. It just wasn't the same. To keep my joy in teaching going, I have kept both a box of keepsakes and a "Nice Things" document on my computer where I keep things that students have given me such as cards or notes and where I basically journal when good things happen. When I'm having a bad day and joy is waning, instead of dwelling on it, I try to look through the box or the document to remember the joy. I also try to include fun activities in my classes as joy starts there. Making class fun benefits my students, but it also benefits me!