Web Inquiry Projects

1. Web Inquiry Projects Inquiring Minds Want to Know Philip Molebash San Diego State University

2. Asking questions Planning and conducting investigations Using appropriate tools and techniques to gather data Critical thinking about relationships between evidence and explanation Constructing and analyzing alternative explanations Communicating results/arguments Ways of Thinking & Acting Associated with Inquiry

3. Science Experiments Problem-Based Learning Socratic Dialogue Constructivism WebQuests Ways of Teaching Commonly Associated with Inquiry

4. Defining Inquiry • Exploratorium Institute for Inquiry (1996) developed the following definition: “Inquiry is an approach to learning that involves a process of exploring the natural or material world, that leads to asking questions and making discoveries in the search for new understandings.”

5. Core of Inquiry Exploring the world Asking questions Making discoveries Coming to new understandings

6. The problem is… • Teachers’ and students’ understandings aren’t always correct • 5 basic elements: earth, water, air, fire, and ether • Earth is at the center of the universe • The world is flat • Heavier objects fall faster • Leaves change color because it gets colder outside

7. Four Stages a Learner Must Go Through to Accept New Explanations • Dissatisfaction • Understand new explanation • New explanation must be plausible • New explanation must be fruitful This is also true for teachers

8. Four Stages a Teacher Must Go Through to Accept New Methods • Dissatisfaction • Understand new explanation • New explanation must be plausible • New explanation must be fruitful

9. Four Stages a Teacher Must Go Through to Accept New Methods • Dissatisfaction –There’s got to be a better way • Understand new explanation • New explanation must be plausible • New explanation must be fruitful

10. Four Stages a Teacher Must Go Through to Accept New Methods • Dissatisfaction –There’s got to be a better way • Understand new explanation – This other way of teaching/learning makes sense • New explanation must be plausible • New explanation must be fruitful

11. Four Stages a Teacher Must Go Through to Accept New Methods • Dissatisfaction –There’s got to be a better way • Understand new explanation – This other way of teaching/learning makes sense • New explanation must be plausible – I believe it can be applied in my classroom • New explanation must be fruitful

12. Four Stages a Teacher Must Go Through to Accept New Methods • Dissatisfaction –There’s got to be a better way • Understand new explanation – This other way of teaching/learning makes sense • New explanation must be plausible – I believe it can be applied in my classroom • New explanation must be fruitful – I can apply this approach in other contexts

13. Why is it so important for teachers to experience inquiry?

14. What’s a teacher to do? • Give yourself inquiry learning experiences • Discover the scaffolding required to be successful at providing inquiry learning environments • Opportunity to use technology appropriately • Finding information needed to solve problems • Manipulating information to solve problems

15. Spiral Path of Inquiry Reflect Report Findings/ Draw Conclusions Ask Questions Analyze/ Manipulate Data Analyze/ Manipulate Data Define Procedures Gather/ Investigate Data Gather/ Investigate Data

16. Habits of Mind Strategies Thinking Skills Onion Layers of Scaffolding Inquiry

17. Scaffolding Inquiry – Developing Thinking Skills • Analyzing, comparing, contrasting, predicting, hypothesizing, making conclusions, etc. • Ask students to explain, to infer, to interpret, to transfer what they’ve learned and to predict • Listen to (and watch) students’ explanationsLanguage of Learning (Karen Gallas)

18. Scaffolding Inquiry – Developing Strategies • Knowing when and how to apply thinking skills to solve a problem • Providing problem-based situations to students so that they can apply their acquired thinking skills • Let students’ questions drive learning

19. Scaffolding Inquiry – Developing Habits of Mind • Being inclined to put problem solving skills into action • Consistently model listening, being curious, striving for accuracy, and asking new questions based on new understandings • Desire these traits from your students (most teachers do not)

20. Levels of Inquiry Learning(Herron, 1971) 0. CONFIRMATION/VERIFICATION – confirmation of a principle through an activity with the results are known in advance. 1. STRUCTURED INQUIRY – students investigate a teacher-presented question through a prescribed procedure.

21. Levels of Inquiry Learning 2. GUIDED INQUIRY – students investigate a teacher-presented question using student-selected procedures. 3. OPEN INQUIRY – students investigate topic-related questions which are student formulated through student-selected procedures.

22. Levels of Inquiry Learning

23. The Internet to the Rescue? • WebQuests developed as an early step in answering the question:“How can Internet resources be effectively used in the classroom?” • When the WebQuest concept was created over seven years ago, there was no formal method of using the Internet to support “learners’ thinking levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation”

24. WebQuest definition • A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which most or all of the information used by learners is drawn from the Web • How “inquiry-oriented” is a WebQuest? http://webquest.sdsu.edu

25. How Do We Scaffold in a WebQuest? by… • Specifying the Task • Specifying roles and perspectives • Providing links and offline resources • Providing outlines, guides and templates • Guiding thinking through visual and other means Sounds a lot like structured inquiry (Level 1)

26. Fading the WebQuest Support • TASK: Gradually allow more flexibility in how and what to produce in the task • PROCESS: Gradually provide fewer URLs and expect learners to find more • PROCESS: Gradually move scaffolding of notetaking, information organizing, writing prompts, etc. from required to implicit. • CONCLUSION: Put more resources here for learners to explore on their own later

27. WebQuests 1. Structured Inquiry RemoveScaffolding Learners’ Responsibility Web Inquiry Projects 2. Guided Inquiry 3. Open Inquiry?

28. Web Inquiry Projects • Use online uninterpreted data/information • primary sources, weather data, sports statistics, music lyrics… • used in ways that allow learners to actively pursue answers to questions that are both interesting and relevant to their required studies. • Facilitated learning plan for teachers to promote guided and open inquiry

29. Web Inquiry Projects Reflect Hook Defend Report Findings/ Draw Conclusions Ask Questions Focus Tools Methodology Analyze/ Manipulate Data Define Procedures Resources Gather/ Investigate Data

30. Web Inquiry Projects http://edweb.sdsu.edu/wip/

31. Aiming for… self-directed learners

32. Stages of Self-Directed Learning 1. Dependent 2. Interested 3. Involved 4. Self-Directed http://www.longleaf.net/ggrow/SSDL/Model.html

33. It All Starts With the Learner • Conceptual Changes • Learners must have personal experiences confronting the inconsistencies in their theories about how the world works (Posner, Strike, Hewson & Gertzog, 1982; Watson & Konicek, 1990) • “Learning is not complete until knowledge can be applied in a problem-solving situation” (Arthur L. Costa)

34. Philip Molebash molebash@mail.sdsu.edu