Beginning with the Day in Mind

1. How can our approach to learning experiences intellectually engage students and ensure depth of understanding?STMU, Sept 25Prepared by: Ms. Cheryl Babin, cbabinrace@gmail.com

2. Beginning with the Day in Mind • Taking Flight! • Engaging Inquirers – A Learning Experience • Inquiry for Intellectual Engagement • Essential Questions for Intellectual Engagement • Models of Inquiry: The “Fitsmebest” Model • Video Evidence: Concept-driven inquiry • Exit Ticket

3. Toolbox on the Wiki Continued from last week…. http://stmu-edcm603.wikispaces.com/home

4. Our Digital Parking Lothttp://wallwisher.com/wall/STMUparkinglot

5. Taking Flight! • Decorate or label a suitcase for yourself. • How would you best describe your current understanding/comfort level with a conceptual approach to unit design? Using the categories on the wall, place your suitcase on the continuum according to where you feel you are on this design journey. Remember, it’s a journey 

6. Intrigued?

7. Exploring Money • Follow the directions on your table. • After 5 - 7 minutes, an indicator will ask you to please rotate . • Be reflective about the engagement. Try to make connections to the way “students” have been invited to engage.

8. Fostering intellectual engagement with artifacts Possible Explorations with artifacts such as Foreign Currency

9. A Teaching – Learning Continuum

10. Making Learning Visible Your voices in action.... “Listen to your words!” What could you do with this data if you collected it from students? What did you notice about yourself as a learner?

11. Example into a Larger Context • See handout “Foreign Money Engagement – Links to Enduring Understandings, Essential Questions and Skills” • Whole group: Share enduring understandings and essential questions • Find a partner or small group. Review possible skills and learning outcomes within each subject area (Math, Social Studies, Language Arts). Prepare to share your thoughts and reflections about skills that may or may not be included in this engagement.

12. Intellectual Engagement ~ FLOW Chart origins: CEA website – Willms, Friesen & Milton. (2009). What did you do in school today? “FLOW” comes from Csikszentmihalyi.

13. Heads, Hearts & Hands = Engagement

14. Characteristics of Intellectually Engaged Students… • Intellectually engaged students are: • excited about learning because they use their hearts, hands , minds to build knowledge • so tuned into work they lose track of time • interested • really care about quality of work • carry their ideas into their lives outside of school • more choices in work, • assumed real leadership roles • willing to let go of old norms in light of new perspectives • (CEA, Canadian Education Association)

15. Thoughts on Inquiry… "Inquiry is not a "method" of doing science, history, or any other subject, in which the obligatory first stage in a fixed, linear sequence is that of students each formulating questions to investigate. Rather, it is an approach to the chosen themes and topics in which the posing of real questions is positively encouraged, whenever they occur and by whoever they are asked. Equally important as the hallmark of an inquiry approach is that all tentative answers are taken seriously and are investigated as rigorously as the circumstances permit.“ (Wells, Gordon (2001). Action, talk & text: Learning & Teaching Through Inquiry.)

16. Thinking back... • How did your state of “FLOW” differ within each instructional approach? • How might this reflection impact the way you engage students?

17. What are enduring understandings and why are they important? “A primary goal of UBD is developing and deepening student understanding (Wiggins & McTighe, 2011).” “Understanding is revealed when students autonomously make sense of and transfer their learning through authentic performance (Wiggins & McTighe, 2011).”

19. Students memorize all of the rivers and bodies of water in Alberta. OR… Students will understand that people settle near rivers and how these bodies of water allow people to live. (Consider: migration, environment, interaction, community, technology)

20. Students memorize a chronological list of dates, events and leaders that make up a country’s government. OR… Students will understand that different types of governments have responsibilities and have a direct impact on the perspectives of citizens in a country. (Consider: Balance, change, community, democracy, diversity, interdependence, justice, liberty, pattern, production, symbol)

21. Students memorize bear facts: types of bears, what they eat and where they live. They sing songs about bears, draw pictures of bears and do math facts with bear pictures beside them. OR… Students will understand that animals are part of a natural ecosystem that is full of living things that are dependent on each other for survival. (Consider: Abundance, adaptation, balance, connection, correlation, cycles, diversity, interactions, interdependence, patterns, survival, system)

22. Visible ThinkingConcepts in Action http://pzweb.harvard.edu/vt/VisibleThinking_html_files/01_VisibleThinkingInAction/01c_VTPoP.html

23. Taking Flight ~ and Take a Break • Re-evaluate your placement on the FLIGHT continuum. • Move your suitcase as appropriate. • Take a 10 minute break... and please come back.

24. Essential Questions “The point of school is not merely to know things but to become better at and more assertive about inquiry. Powerful questions that frame all units signal this educational aim (Wiggins & McTighe, 2011)”. “Learning to ask and pursue important questions on one’s own is the desired result, and arguably key to all genuine lifelong learning (Wiggins & McTighe, 2011).”

25. Key reminders… • summative assessments must evaluate enduring understandings and essential questions • formative assessments assess and provide feedback on the knowledge and skills of the unit • essential questions promote higher levels of thinking and therefore higher levels of student engagement • a constructivist approach allows students to become inquirers who are intellectually engaged in their learning

26. Describe pedagogy that is intellectually engaging… ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ___________________

27. What does intellectually engaging pedagogy look and sound like? • Using the consensus chart, please take a few minutes to write your personal definition or description in your quadrant • When everyone at your table is finished writing, share your definitions with those at your table • Use the center space to come up with a definition that meets the consensus of your group.

28. Inquiry-based Pedagogy • Take 10 minutes to explore the resources in your handout. • Return to your consensus statement. Please add any words, phrases, sentences or pictures that may add to the “heart” of the description. • Visit www.wordle.net • Create a wordle that represents your collective view with the group. (Remember that the frequency of a word placed in wordle affects its size in the output.)

29. A Learning – Teaching Continuum

30. What’s the difference between traditional teaching and INQUIRY?

31. Inquiry is about seeing possibilities

32. Strategies to structure inquiry OTQ Observe. Think. Question.

34. Building on Real Experiences • Connect to a REAL situation… • Consider the BIG idea. • What do we need to know to get there? • Create an open-ended task to help students “uncover” the objectives.

35. Inquiry Units In an inquiry unit, the focus is on exploring the topic from as many perspectives as possible before finding questions or issues for in-depth investigation. • Share observations and questions, collect resources • Inquiry is focused on guiding questions • Construct meaning through carefully designed activities • Knowledge is seen as someone else’s answer to prior questions • Understanding is seen as an ongoing process that involves the formation of new questions which lead to the creation of more compelling theories

36. Where a street has a different name… “What street is this?” http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_weird_or_just_different.html

37. A Closer Look at Inquiry • “Inquiry involves an active engagement with the environment in an effort to make sense of the world, and consequent reflection on the connections between the experiences encountered and the information gathered.” (PYP monograph, IBO.org)

38. Inquiry Cycle

39. From Lindfors: Inquiry As A Cycle (one example)

40. Inquiry Cycle http://www.inquiryschools.net

41. Sample of inquiry model process created by a teacher and her grade 2 class.

42. Use the resources to Design a “Fitsmebest Model” Please work with a NEW friend Use any ideas, inspirations that you have seen Draft a Fitsmebest Model that you can share with the group (visual product) If time permits, we will use a Silent Gallery Walk coupled with an opportunity to provide peer feedback Please respond to at least two models that you see (and ensure each model has at least two responses)

43. Tips for Teachers: Building a culture of inquiry • Approach inquiry with enthusiasm and excitement. • Admit that inquiry involves the unexpected for you and for students. • Model the inquiry process in your instruction (show as well as tell). • Use the language of inquiry. • Facilitate the process—discuss, clarify, support and monitor. • Evaluate the process (and make it really count). • Use technology to do what would be impossible otherwise. • (source: Focus on Inquiry, Alberta Education, pg. 15)

44. Check in on our Parked Thoughts…

45. Exit Ticket… Today’s Meet! FOOTHILLS 3 reasons that essential questions are critical for intellectually engaging students 2 ideas for heightening student engagement in your classroom 1 question that arose from our work today Name: Visit the site: www.todaysmeet.com/teachtoengage