Inquiry Mindset: Making Inquiry Visible / Public Displays of Understanding

Courtesy of Trevor Mackenzie

These two chapters challenged me to reflect on how my students can showcase their work to (cliche alert, but I'm going to say it anyway) an authentic audience. My students have completed the National History Day project for 5 years now, and the Local Contest is an excellent way for students to showcase their work. Unfortunately, only judges can be around for the interview portion, but projects remain in the hallways for all to see for at least two weeks. Online projects (websites, documentaries, papers, and performances) are posted on my website and shared with the community as well.

As for future displays of understanding, I want to delve into blogging and/or portfolios.

I would like to use Google Sites, as it is an easy-to-use, yet robust, online platform. It won't work like a traditional blog, but students can create pages to showcase a variety of work. Unfortunately, our students have iPads, and Google has yet to make it easy to use all of the components of Google Sites on a mobile platform.

On Google Sites, students can post the following:

• Photographs
• Videos
• Text
• Finished projects in the form of Google Docs, Google Slides, etc.
• Adobe Spark or Canva graphics
• etc... endless possibilities!

Students can use their website to post their wonderings, reflect on their process, and display their final findings. As I am in a very small district and I teach students for multiple years (some for all four years of high school), they can build upon their website over the years and see their growth. I would love to collaborate with some other teachers on this, but I have to pilot this first.

The best part about Google Sites is that they can be kept private or shared with only a small audience. Most students already have permission from their parents to publish to the world, but a select few do not. These students could share their work with me and their parents and no one else has to see it. Of course, I would discuss the importance of an authentic audience with parents, but ultimately, it is up to parents to decide whether posting publicly is safe for their child.

If students' sites are public, we can showcase them via our school district's Twitter account as well. Having a real audience such as the community will motivate students to put their best effort into their work, as they know that other people besides their teacher will be viewing it.

I am also considering putting together a classroom blog where we can showcase one activity a week. When the Google Sites take off in the future, we can showcase student sites on the blog by linking to them as well. This will allow me to model digital citizenship to my students, which is incredibly important in our world full of increasing virtual communication.

Because implementing Google Sites portfolios would require a great deal of planning, unfortunately, I will have to wait until at least next school year to put them into practice. My focus this year is standards-based grading and creating inquiry-based units.