Inquiry Part Five Transcript
Slide 35 (Questions)
Any questions about what we talked about so far? we are almost done. Joyce you asked when this powerpoint will be available on the wiki. I'm going to post the powerpoint today, the webinar itself should be available hopefully by the end of the week. I'm going to need to transcribe it, and that's everybody's favorite thing. Any other questions? Give you a second to process. PAUSE. Of course if you do have other questions you can certainly shoot us an email as we go, but we're going to talk now and sort of wrap it all up toward the end by talking about challenges. I'm sure the challenges are on our minds.
Slide 36 (Challenges)
What are some of the challenges that we might face with this model? We are going to talk about the challenges, we are going to talk about solutions to these challenges and really whether they ARE challenges. We have the length of the class period, pressures of coverage, breadth vs depth, discomfort with the approach, potential for disorganization, and you know, a challenge is what you make of it. One thing to think about, and we're going to talk about this in a few minutes, is that you shouldn't feel as though things need to be done in one class period. Alright, this also gives you a chance to collaborate across curriculum areas and with other teachers. Pressures of coverage and breadth vs depth are connected. Just as a reminder, remember that our North Carolina Essential Standards do not dictate content. Coverage should not be an issue because you're going to cover the standards. We're not telling you what you have to cover, as long as you're covering those standards. And inquiry lends itself very well to our standards because our standards sort of expect that depth, right, because you're teaching towards those generalizations. Generalizations are written for depth, alright, rather than breadth. Your research questions and your projects get right to that critical depth. Discomfort with the approach, that ultimately, I mean, that's a reality that just takes practice. One suggestion might be to observe somebody that uses this model. Take a look at some of the BIE videos. You also have some stuff we've linked for you in this powerpoint with resources. Michelle found a fantastic set of videos on teaching channel that looks at inquiry based classrooms and instruction. you should take a look at that. And of course, the potential for disorganization. Famous movie once said, I have one word for you: plastics. I have one word for you, planning. Alright. This is where planning comes into play and planning is just key. Look, let's be honest, you're already doing this planning when you're crafting your units and if you're crafting high quality conceptual units, you're already addressing the issue with disorganization. And of course you want to make sure that your administration is also aware of the type of model that you're using as well, which will address some of those concerns that you might have about disorganization.
Slide 37 (Questions you might ask)
So let's go ahead and talk about some questions that you might ask. so we're going to ask ourselves what are some questions that we might ask as we plan moving forward.

Slide 38 (Rubrics)
Think about, for example, do you have any rubrics or examplars. Am I using a rubric and exemplar.Should I use a rubric or exemplar. So, I'm just throwing this out here for those of that are here, should you show exemplars to your students? I'm going to ask you to just respond. If you don't think you should show an exemplar, why not? And if you do think that you should show an exemplar, what kind of exemplar should you show? I'm just going to throw this out there as well, what could be a problem with showing an exemplar for this type of model? LONG PAUSE.Anyone? Well, I'll answer, I have an answer, yay, ok, Steve, alright well one of the issues with showing exemplars could be that students work towards the exemplar rather than what you're trying to get them to do, so one way to address that would be to show them an exemplar from a completely unrelated project but that still has sort of the expectations and still shows them high quality work. And of course you always want to have a rubric of some kind that students are using. Ok, Kim, thank you so much, "to show them the way to understand what you're looking for and how far to take their project. I've done this before and it worked wonderfully, they went above and beyond." Fantastic, and that's a very good point. Again, throwing the question out there, it's really personal preference and the research is mixed. One concern with showing them an exemplar specifically related to the project question that they are exploring is that they're really sort of just copying the exemplar, but it doesn't sound like Kim is having that issue though and that's good. But as long as you have those rubrics, that really takes care of itself. Thank you so much for your response Kim, I really appreciate it.
Slide 39 (Formative Assessment)
Now, formative assessment. Do I include effective formative assessment in my planning here. Really think about what makes an effective formative assessment in an inquiry model. we've talked about that as we've gone throughout this. For example, students working collaboratively, and that reflective piece we talked about could really be where alot of that formative assessment takes place. Do students understand the questions? Do they understand the process? Do they understand the generalizations that you're working towards?

Slide 40 (Time)

TIME.Tiiiiiiime is on my side, and it is on your side in the inquiry model. You know why? Because you don't actually need to make time.and why don't we need to make time? because we've already worked it into our units. We're working inquiry into our conceptual units and lesson plans. Time takes care of itself. So just think about that. Don't let the time element frighten you. You're already doing this. You guys are fantastic at developing units, we are starting to see some really good stuff happening across the state. you're able to do this already. Don't let time be an issue here when you're using an inquiry model.

Slide 41 (authenticity)
Authenticity is so very important. Think about, what does it mean, you know, just because something is authentic to you, doesn't necessary mean it's authentic to your students, if you understand what I'm getting here? You want to definitely make sure that your students understand why what they're doing matters. It get's to that relevance, right. It connects back to quality instruction in the social studies in the authenticity and the relevance.
Slide 42 (Quality and Rigor)
And quality and rigor. does the culture encourage quality and rigor. We've talked about this already in our classroom environment. So think about, how can classroom culture influence the creation, production, and outcomes within an inquiry model? And again, you guys are already doing this in your own classrooms. You're already got a rigorous quality classroom. So just think about that.

Slide 43 (Questions)
Now, are there any questions as we are wrapping up? Only got one more real slide left. No more questions. Ok. Alright.

Slide 44 (How to Avoid Problems)
Problems. Well, we don't have more money, so that's not a problem, but we have other problems. Other problems could be making mistakes. You might make mistakes in planning, students might make mistakes. But we need to recognize its ok if we make mistakes. It's ok if our kids make mistakes. and this can be hard for kids today to understand, but mistakes can be learning experiences, and in an inquiry model, mistakes are expected, because for many students this could be the first time that they are trying to go this deeply. For you this could be one of the first times that you try to go this deeply. Mistakes can be learning experiences and we build on those learning experiences. Modeling, practice, and feedback is so very key. Alright. Active listening and full group attention really need to be modeled, practiced. You need to give students constant feedback on their work. You want to of course give students the opportunity to discuss differences and explore discrepancies. Students should be ready to dig in to discrepancies that appear in a variety of resources -- and they should be provided with sufficient time to do so. Discussing differences and contradicting information that result in a variety of sources and evaluating the evidence that led to different conclusions, are important exercises in developing critical-thinking and self-directed learning skills. This is why collaboration is important. Students could really interpret one source in two completely different ways. Remember too that planning can't be locked in stone. One of the things that we emphasize in our summer institutes and in our RESAs is that that planning is an iterative process. So even with this model, planning can't be locked in stone. You've got to be willing to go back to it, revise it as you go, even as the mistakes happen. Alright, we're going to go back to our units and revise them, fix what doesn't work. And then we have a reference there at the bottom, Project based learning research review from Edutopia, we have the links there for you, this is a very recent article from last year so I encourage you to check that out.
Slide 45 (Resources)
Then we have a number of resources that are available here. We have, and we've given you sort of what they're about generally and where you can find them. Again, these are on the the wiki and what I'll do is I'll go ahead and just create a separate document and put these on the wiki as well in that same place. We have the Buck Institute, which has some really good stuff. We have some sample inquiry projects. I showed you the link to that earlier. We have a project based learning guide, which gets into it. The C3 framework, again there were questions about the C3 framework earlier, we have the entire C3 framework for you there. We have History Lab, which is fantastic. My internet is being a little wonky, so I'm afarid if I take you to it I wouldn't be able to get back, but history lab is really a new thing coming out of Maryland and it is fantastic, really gets that inquiry model and I encourage you to check it out. And we have some of the videos that Michelle found for us on the Teaching Channel on inquiry based teaching for you.
Slide 46 (Research)
And then we have some scholarly research as well, where when your principal says hey why you doing this, you can pull out this inquiry research and say this is why I'm doing this and this is how it's going to help my students. So we have some links to the research there for you.
Slide 47 (Questions)
Alright any questions or closing commentsthat we can help you with. Anybody that wants to share any ideas about project based learning or problem based learning or the inquiry model in general? LONG PAUSE Give you a second to process. Thank you Joyce, I appreciate that you got something out of it. and before the question come sup, because they always do at the end of these things, information on

the current final exams will be going out soon. Fay just sent out a message to our listserv that has information on some of the final exam stuff. Just wanted to go ahead and make sure that folks were aware of that before any questions come up. Well, if there are no other questions, on behalf of Michelle
and Ann and Fay and Justyn, really want to and of course myself (laugh) I really want to thank you so much for attending and participating, especially participating in this webinar.This will be archived hopefully by the end of the week and we look forward to seeing you at our next webinar. Kim, thank you so much for your kind words, and please share the word about our webinars because we would love to see some more folks coming rather than waiting for the archive. Thank you so much and again thank you ladies and gentlemen and thank you Kelly for coming all the way from Oklahoma. and we look forward to working with you soon. Please feel free to shoot us an email. Have a wonderful social studies day. Bye Bye.