In the past the biggest challenge I've faced is how to assess inquiry-based activities when there are so many district required assessments that take up time.  Honestly, I hadn't really figured out how to incorporate assessment very well in the inquiry process.  Now my district is moving to standards referenced grading, which will make incorporating assessments much easier.  I'll be able to look at the standards that are being taught and take some kind of work sample, whether that's a picture of a graph a child created, or anecdotal notes about a conversation, or a final report, and assess if it's meeting the grade level expectation or not.

The most challenging aspect I had with leading and assessing inquiry-based activities was- time. Content area units were taught in rotation with two other fourth grade classes. It was frustrating to be tightly bound by the clock. There were many times I longed to be back to the days of self-contained elementary school classrooms. If students were deeply engaged, I could monitor and adjust the time to allow extending science. It was also much easier to integrate units of study.

One form of inquiry project is having my students choose a career they are interested in pursuing, and then developing questions about what is required to prepare for that career, and what that career actually entails (salary, hours, location, etc.)  Challenges involve the work they do is not very interesting to them...it begins as online investigation, and even when guided to career databases by our media specialist, they groan and balk at using those databases.  I wonder if it's better to start with finding a person who is involved in their chosen career and ask them questions before tackling the database work?  This might motivate them to delve into the material, once they see it in action.  It's hard for students to get excited about numbers on a screen...they need to connect to the flesh and bone aspects of the research first.

My biggest challenge is the lack of time I get to see the students and the number of students that I have.  For example, I love to walk around and listen -- formative assessments but I see the students 2 time a week and most classes are back to back meaning that as one class is leaving another class is coming in --usually a different grade level. the time to jot down notes for assessment is extremely limited that way as well as the amount of work that needs to be covered. I thought that this next year may slow down starting with DL but if any ndication of the last two weeks --- oh my!!

The single most challenging aspect of my job as been assessing students work. Our summative assessments are usually in the form of lab packets and reading guides, and our formative assessments are mostly tests which assess what they know/learned from the curriculum and if they can effectively apply their knowledge. We do some lab based performance assessments to see that students can safely perform a procedure, which applies their knowledge of the curriculum, to acquire a "desired outcome." Before Covid, I've felt confined to teach the curriculum, which left very little room for creativity and flexibility in science. Now, having the opportunity to slow down and concentrate on the skills a 6th grade student should have when he/she moves onto 7th, I feel like I have the green light to "chill out" and introduce projects that students are more invested in, while assessing those skills. I love the idea of creating a website for students to display their work. I am excited to get to know my students; truly know my students and the way they learn best as well as what sparks their curiosity.

Challenges I face in leading and assessing inquiry-based activities are in the informal environmental educator role I have limited time and typically only see the students once. However, to combat this I have started working with teachers in preparation of the lesson, I get teachers to create an “I Wonder…” board related to the lesson topic and work with students on their inquiries. For the assessment, I am working on a 5-question survey that teachers can do with students via a google form after the program.

Some challenges I've faced have been teaching in an informal environment and having the students for a short period of time. Disregarding that, I think it would be helpful to have a program that has teachers work with their students to develop inquiry that could be completed on a trip to our nature preserve!

The challenges I face in doing inquiry-based activities with classes varies from year to year, partly depending on what background knowledge and experience my students bring with them. One of the general issues is time and maintaining workflow. It has helped to use a calendar that correlates with the rubric we are using. I do tend to like to create rubrics with students, that we continue to add to or revise as we are working. Formative assessment is really important, but since my students are 4th grade Language learners, they are sometimes more limited in terms of peer feedback. One way of addressing this is working in small groups so that students can bound ideas off of each other and build their projects together. It also makes it a little easier for me to provide groups with timely feedback. I really liked The Inquiry Continuum that was presented earlier in the course because it really helps to scaffold the process more easily without the expectation that students don't need to engage a complete "Open Inquiry" when they are initially learning the process of inquiry. It takes time to for students to develop the skills and conceptual understanding needed for Open Inquiry. I also think the process is more important than getting to some specific outcome, if that is not where students are at.

I haven't lead many inquiry-based activities yet. One of my biggest challenges is about my own confidence as an educator.  I only hope that I can be true to myself as I share an interest in nature.  By modeling inquiry as I explore nature, I hope I can share it with others (especially during distance learning last spring.)  Supporting struggling students enough but letting them also struggle is an important thing to consider as I return to school this year.

One of the biggest challenges have been keeping the project with the time frame allowed. Sometimes, the investigations last longer than intended. I try to now design projects that are able to shape their own timeline based on the interests.

I have struggled with coming up with a good rubric. I seem to change it constantly. I guess this isn't a horrible thing. I have adjusted it based off of my students and their skills. We have had a lot of students who are low readers and writers. So my assessments for submitting science fair papers has changed.

My biggest challenge comes with limited time. Since I lead programs that are often only an hour long, I not only don't have time to formally assess students' work, but I often feel like I don't have time to facilitate inquiry with all of the content I have to fit in the programs. I understand this must be how formal educators feel with their own lesson plans and education requirements! While I often ask questions to the group, it's hard to get all of the students to speak up and voice their thoughts. I find that when I take them outside they seem to have more courage to talk to me or talk to other students that might have been all the way across the classroom before. Out in the field they can look around and explore what they are curious about. I'd like to move away from structured lesson plans a little bit and create room for deviation so I can follow the students' inquiries and curiosities.

Some challenges that I have encountered are students not use to working with other kids and lack of materials.  One or two students may take the lead, and the other students sit and let them work on the project.  Sometimes supplies can be an issue.  I may be the only contributor of common household supplies (i.e. paper towel rolls, newspapers, jar lids, ...)  Therefore, group sizes may be a bit larger if I had to gather or purchase what was needed to conduct the investigation. Our school encourages the use of Kagan Cooperative Learning strategies which leads to excellent activities, but the teacher must intervene to ensure participation from "all" students.  I try a variety of groupings after observing student interaction.  Some students prefer working alone so it is a challenge to convince students that two heads or more are better than one.  

My biggest challenge is lack of understanding about inquiry-based activities and/or the opportunity to use them. I will need to tackle this issue with information, education and patience. I teach nutrition education and work with school gardens in collaboration with 5 local schools and teach one-hour classes as a “specials” teacher. We have specific curriculum that is required for me to teach with but citizen science and/or inquiry-based activities are not part of this. In the past year there has been discussion that we are considering aligning one of our curricula with the NGSS standards. Now, due to the pandemic, my job is undergoing a transformation. Ever hopeful, I am wondering how to start interjecting some of these concepts and activities into the process of these changes. I was in a meeting last week with colleagues and mentioned citizen science. Everyone paused and then someone asked, “What’s that?”. My path ahead will be steep…

Inquiry based activities seem like a great way for students to really be involved with learning.  I applaud all of the educator are able to facilitate this type of learning.  I really enjoyed reading how Mr. Kahler has incorporated this style of learning into this classrooms.  It is wonderful how he views this style of learning as a learning experience for himself in revising and improving his lessons based on his experiences with his students.  This level of self evaluation is amazing and valuable.  I also appreciate that students learn to provide positive feedback through peer review - what a skill for students to learn and practice.  This level of discussion elevates interpersonal exchange and helps each learner to improve.  I would really enjoy doing this type of learning, but in my current role, I have a short time to engage and interact with my audience.  Lots of people have commented on this style of learning takes a lot of time and their time is limited by what they need to accomplish.  That being said, I think if inquiry based learning can result in more learning then this time is well spent.  It is evident that inquiry based activities must be fully communicated within the education community to ensure that student experiments are not disrupted by uniformed maintenance or custodial personal do not understand what is happening.  Buy in and administrative support seem necessary along with understanding among other educators so everyone is aware of the learning that is taking place.   Perhaps education advancement needs to have teacher rethink teaching to further student literacy.

My problem is time too, since most of the classes I teach are a one-day, field trip format. Our lesson on the scientific process/inquiry has to fit in one hour! That's the inquiry design (with students), observations, data analysis, and sharing time. Even though this is super rushed, we do get positive feedback from teachers - the hands on practice we lead supplements the formal classroom instruction. How fun would it be to stretch this out over the course of a school year!

I have not had challenges with my guided level inquiry lessons with my K-2 students. One of the issues I see having when they progress to the next level of inquiry is managing multiple inquiry projects within one class. This includes time management, management of grading and conferencing with students and helping as needed. I guess this can only be done successfully when have participated in and have been successful in lower level inquiry projects.

From my limited experience with inquiry-based activities, these are the challenges I've faced and still struggle with:

• Challenges in leading: + Time: These activities require longer time, especially for my students who are new to this style of learning, and also seem to have difficulties focusing; + Lack of confidence from the students to take up their own learning, as they often expect to be given the right answers; + Keeping up the enthusiasm; + Me trying not to interfere too much in student's process: For me this may relate to my own lack of confidence, as I suspect that driving their learning towards my ideas would be less scary to me...
• Challenges in assessing: + Again, with students new to this style of learning, providing formative assessment takes a lot of time and seem to work better 1-on-1. But from my own education, I understand the value of providing feedback before students submit their final work. So I'd like to continue this practice, and would like to know if anyone else has suggestions for how I can improve it (besides the use of rubrics). + With open-end projects like these, does anyone have suggestions for preventing plagiarism?

Time is probably one of the biggest challenges that I've had, it seems that no matter how well organized you are, there is never enough time. Once you get going on a project, students become very enthusiastic and many conversations evolve along with further questions, all of which need time! I'm not sure that I have a solution to this problem!! (ha!)

When I am asked into a classroom or an afterschool program I have limited time with youth.  One program that I teach is called Bloxels, it is a video game designing program that uses pixel blocks for youth to create characters, background, layouts and animations.  They can choose their video game topic, sometimes it is a book they have read or something they learned in school or a topic of their passion.  After they pick the topic, sometimes they need to research it more to make sure that their games showcase their topic accurately.  In one instance I was able to bring the kids on a field trip to talk to game designers, they learned that all types of majors are important to game designing and the importance of being accurate so they can sell their games.  And then youth have to play each other's games and give feedback. I feel like this is the closest I come to teaching an inquiry based program but feel it is more structured or guided inquiry depending on the support the student needs.

The main problem I have is running out of time with students so that they are not able to revise their work. My school uses competencies such as lead inquiry or design solutions that merit the creation of rubrics to assess my students. Since we are also project/problem based learning as well, we are supposed to allow for revisions and that usually can take a group of students out of the project cycle.

Time! Time! Time! The reality of the science education is to cover the topics that are needed for testing -- which are way too many to cover in my 2 40 minute classes each week. My heart and passion is with inquiry, (PBL) but i see that most often it is guided and structured. This year may be different and I just may do a full blown inquiry based projects for all 350 students who hopefully will not have to test this year--- and I may be retiring this year. Perfect storm! Rubrics are the way to go with assessing as well as a some presentation.  5 years ago, we tried an experiment at our school-- everyone gave up their reading block and did a full blown inquiry based science project connected to the Bay. The students loved coming to school during that time-- Some teachers were totally overjoyed and several were just confused. Overall the project was phenomenal with over 200 parents attending the Science Museum we had at the end of the 6 weeks.

Time is the main issue for me as an informal educator. I get a max of half a day with the kids, sometimes even less than 2 hours. There isn't really much room for follow-up, but I encourage further inquiry outside of the program.

One of the challenges is remembering to use the open inquiry so that it becomes a good habit and happens more regularly.  Children are curious and ask questions and wonder, and I have found that the more we do it, the more naturally it becomes for them.  Assessing is more informal at this age.  I assess by looking at drawings and listening to questions students ask.  Pairing children and having them work in small groups also allows them to ask more questions and help each other with investigations.  Over the years, I have found it most helpful to teach across disciplines so that time does not become a constraint.  In first grade, we do have the luxury of having the students all day, so that gives us more flexibility.  It is important to get the students engaged and show your own excitement.  My other recommendations are working with another teacher and inviting a parent,  friend or community member who can share and help with a science investigation.  My hope is always to inspire children to continue investigating when they are not in school, which does happen often.

One of the biggest challenges is the "mindset" our students seem to have about learning in general. I teach in a low socioeconomic rural community. While I can often ignite curiosity and excitement for science inquiry-based activities, it's the follow-through that is often the problem. As teachers at the middle school, we work hard on building a family mentality with our class. We work hard on mindset and perseverance is a continuing theme. There is a quick and be done attitude and that's good enough that is popular with our students. I really think the Citizen Science aspect will help. It will make their data meaningful and more important. I always have a presentation aspect to my projects and I think this is really important. When my students know that they will present information to other students and teachers, it makes a difference. I invite any class that would like to come and view the projects and I always encourage them to ask questions of my students. My students know their former teachers will be surveying their work so they want to do well. By doing this, I am setting expectations for not only my present students but future students as well.