kim trefz's List: Project Based Learning

• Research shows that such inquiry-based teaching is not so much about seeking the right answer but about developing inquiring minds, and it can yield significant benefits. For example, in the 1995 School Restructuring Study, conducted at the Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools by Fred Newmann and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, 2,128 students in twenty-three schools were found to have significantly higher achievement on challenging tasks when they were taught with inquiry-based teaching, showing that involvement leads to understanding. These practices were found to have a more significant impact on student performance than any other variable, including student background and prior achievement.

• A growing body of research demonstrates that students learn more deeply if they have engaged in activities that require applying classroom-gathered knowledge to real-world problems. Like the old adage states, "Tell me and I forget, show me and I remember, involve me and I understand."

    

  Research shows that such inquiry-based teaching is not so much about seeking the right answer but about developing inquiring minds, and it can yield significant benefits. For example, in the 1995 School Restructuring Study, conducted at the Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools by Fred Newmann and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, 2,128 students in twenty-three schools were found to have significantly higher achievement on challenging tasks when they were taught with inquiry-based teaching, showing that involvement leads to understanding. These practices were found to have a more significant impact on student performance than any other variable, including student background and prior achievement.
• five key components of effective project learning:
• Centrality to the curriculum
• Driving questions that lead students to encounter central concepts
• • Investigations that involve inquiry and knowledge building
   
  • Processes that are student driven, rather than teacher driven
   
  • Authentic problems that people care about in the real world

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• Inquiry-based   learning is a cyclical process: The   learner asks questions --> these   questions lead to the desire for answers to the question (or for solutions to   a problem) and result in the beginning of exploration and hypotheses creation   --> these   hypotheses lead to an investigation to test the hypothesis/ses or find answers   and solutions to the question and/or problem --> the   investigation leads to the creation or construction of new knowledge based on   investigation findings --> the   learner discusses and reflects on this newly-acquired knowledge, which, in turn   leads to more questions and further investigation…

   

  Expanding   this process beyond the self can have profoundly positive social implications   globally. When   true inquiry is supported inside and outside of the classroom the learner feels   valued and respected and learning blossoms. He or she comes to see learning   as an intrinsically fun   and enjoyable life-long process to be shared with   others. Nurturing   the natural curiosities within a child helps create a child who strives for   knowledge and understanding both within herself and in the world around her.

   

  Paula

• Very sadly, our traditional ways of teaching discourage the process of  inquiry. It makes the student get less prone to asking questions as they  move through their grade levels, they are just expected to listen and repeat  the expected answers. This is due to the lack of understanding of inquiry  based learning. Inquiry based learning is not just asking questions, but  it is a way of converting data and information into useful knowledge. A  useful application of inquiry based learning involves many different factors,  which are, a different level of questions, a focus for questions, a framework  for questions, and a context for questions.
• There are four essential elements on which inquiry based learning depends,  which are, first is that the patterns and meanings should not be deceptive  to the beginners, second is that the useful knowledge about a field should  be structured, third is that the knowledge which is structured should be  applicable, transferable, and accessible to a vast range of situations,  fourth is that the structured knowledge should be easily retrieved so that  new information in that particular field could be gained without much effort.
• by providing different  ways of viewing the world, communicating with it, and successfully introducing  new questions and issues of daily life and finding answers of them.

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• “If students are to understand the scientific process, they must make decisions themselves,” reads the 2004 Standard Course of Study. “Students who learn to question, debate, and explore acquire a deeper understanding of the world. By discovering principles, rather than just memorizing them, students learn not just what we know, but how we know it, and why it is important.”
• Inquiry involves students and challenges them. Most people, Budnitz believes, “learn by doing things. They learn by getting enmeshed in stuff.” In one California school district, students taught inquiry-based science for four years showed steady improvements on tests of both science achievement and writing proficiency. “I think if you teach kids inquiry, you’re teaching them how to think,” says Budnitz. “It opens them to the whole process of how do you puzzle out stuff. And what could be more valuable?”
• But if you can incorporate some inquiry into your classes, if you can to some extent let your students ask their own questions and conduct their own explorations, you will help them to understand how science works. The principles they learn will be more salient and memorable. They’ll be engaged. And they’ll be learning to think for themselves, which will serve them well all their lives.

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• pedagogical approach — inquiry-based instruction — in which students learn by

   
   
  • observing or engaging in an event,
   
  • devising questions based on their observations,
   
  • developing hypotheses,
   
  • formulating strategies for testing their theories,
   
  • performing the tests,
   
  • analyzing and drawing conclusions from test results, and
   
  • communicating their findings to others.
• Although her natural inclination is “to help my students when they’re stumped or confused, I need constantly to remind myself that when I supply an answer or even suggest a method for finding an answer, I’m not truly helping.” In terms of the tenets of inquiry-based instruction, she explains, when she answers students’ questions straightforwardly instead of asking questions to help the students find the answers themselves, she’s actually interfering with the learning process.
• “The first thing we do is begin an ‘I see — I wonder’ exercise,” says Ms. Moore. This technique, a variation of KWL, not only allows the kids’ natural curiosity to emerge but also provides Ms. Moore with valuable insights into her students’ misconceptions. This information, she explains, helps her determine and design future paths of inquiry.
• Not only is science in the adult world a collaborative process, she emphasizes, but also the ability to collaborate is an essential 21st century skill. “Everything I do should contribute to students’ success outside of class,” she says, “and it’s never too early for kids to learn how to get along in the world.”
• After completing “I see — I wonder,” the children “do science.” Throughout the remainder of the unit, they theorize, test, analyze, experiment, and share and review results at various work stations Ms. Moore establishes in the classroom. They also receive visits from and ask questions of representatives from some of the many local businesses engaged in mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction in the mountains in and around Mitchell County.
• A modern educational tool Ms. Moore considers indispensable for effective inquiry-based instruction is the set of graphic organizers known as Thinking Maps, which help children categorize information in visually coherent ways.

  • http://www.thinkingmaps.com/
• Thinking Maps, she explains, help students gain control of the process by offering them eight distinct ways to organize their inquiries — a circle map for defining in context, for example, or a bubble map for describing with adjectives, etc. Thinking Maps, she continues, introduce students to the notion of thinking about thinking — of conceptualizing the thought process objectively, perceiving it as a tool they may manipulate as they would, for example, a magnifying lens, rather than as a mysterious process in which they are inevitably enveloped and to which they are uncontrollably subject.
• If a student attacks a problem in one way — using, for example, a “double bubble” Thinking Map for comparing and contrasting — and the information does not cohere, he or she can discard that approach and try another way. “When kids use Thinking Maps, they tend not to become frustrated when things don’t work out immediately,” says Ms. Moore.
• The key to truly understanding and thus wholeheartedly embracing inquiry-based instruction, Ms. Moore emphasizes, is for teachers to keep at the forefront of their minds that any given Standard Course of Study objective is simply a means to achieving the more profound educational goal of “helping children gain active control over the process of thinking so they learn how to learn, which will serve them well throughout their lives.”

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• Exploration

   

  In the first phase, students work on their own or in small groups to explore scientific phenomena, manipulate materials, and attempt to solve problems. The teacher acts as facilitator, posing questions and providing assistance as needed. Students have the opportunity to develop their own hypotheses and to test them through a hands-on experiment or observation.

   

  Concept development

   

  In the second phase of the learning cycle, the teacher leads the students through the introduction and development of the scientific concepts central to the lesson. The students may begin by sharing their observations and ideas from the exploration phase. The teacher may then use written or audio-visual materials to develop the concept and introduce relevant vocabulary.

   

  Concept application

   

  The teacher now poses a new problem or situation for the students to solve based on their initial exploration and on the concepts they refined in the second phase. As in the first phase, the students work individually or in small groups while the teacher acts as facilitator. The learning cycle may then begin again, as these hands-on activities become the starting point for the exploration and development of a related concept.

• ut in addition to helping students to understand that it’s ok to ask questions, it’s also a way to make the students answer their own questions. “You have to be willing to say you don’t know when a student asks you a question,” Dubay says. “I have a hard time saying no, so if one of the students asks me a question, I have to catch myself, because I’ll give them th e answer. Even if I know, I’ll say, ‘I don’t know. You’ve got to figure that out. And when you find out, I want to know!’” Teachers need to become comfortable not having all the answers, he adds. “It’s not a sign of your weakness as a teacher that you don’t know the answer. And even if you knew the answer, you wouldn’t want to tell them, so it’s almost better not to know.”
• To encourage students to ask questions, Dubay designs his units with inquiry as the focus. Inquiry, he acknowledges, requires a shift away from more traditional forms of pedagogy. “Sometimes I’ll put an activity together that will require them to do some research. And as I’m putting it together, there are a lot of different directions to go with it. Sometimes I’ll think, ‘maybe I need to work out this and that detail so they know where to go.’ And other times I’ll think, ‘no, let them figure that out.’ I try to just frame the question so they’re given some guidance on where to go, but don’t give them any of the answers. I let them struggle with it.”
• Dubay begins a unit by giving students the opportunity to ask open-ended questions. He’ll introduce a concept, section, or unit by asking students to consider the essential questions about the topic. “These are the big questions, not the objective questions with yes or no answers. In fact, the more central the question, the less definitive the answer is to it, or the more unknowns that are still out there floating around about this question.” These essential questions become the organizing concepts for a unit.

• Managing all that activity, keeping the students productive without directing them, can be challenging. “You’re not at the front of the classroom lecturing, giving students the answers,” he says. “You’re circling around trying to answer questions. But if they don’t ask questions, you’re kind of standing there, and you can look around and see what they’re doing…You can do that a few times, but you look around the room and have to step back because you don’t want to bug somebody and be too obnoxious asking them all the time and being a distraction, because it is a distraction.”

  The teacher who is willing to meet these challenges, though, is rewarded with students who are more engaged in the material and understand scientific concepts more thoroughly. “I think on balance, if you can do it, its better to have them do the discovery. They’re going to learn it better, remember it longer.”

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