Sometimes students have a hard time understanding what you are asking of them. It does take time for them to become independent thinkers and think outside of being told what to do step by step. I usually give my students some ideas of final projects, but also allow them the freedom to include their own ideas. I like how Phil said that his rubric evolved over the years. I have done an adaptation artistry project that was very successful. The kids had a great time doing it. They had a lot of freedom in how they did it, they just needed to include the required information in the format they chose. I think the first time doing inquiry projects is the hardest or with a topic you aren't well versed in. I just keep diving in because the students really benefit and enjoy these types of projects.

As a librarian I have not led nor assessed inquiry-based activities, and even when I was in the classroom, none of the science we did could accurately be described as inquiry-based. I am excited and apprehensive about venturing into this citizen science project with my students.

I have had major issues with plagiarism.  I have had to move to assignments that are much more open ended so it is easier to spot. I model what the end result should look like and explain that everybody's work should look different - I give examples of what would be plagiarism to what isn't.   I also have students turn in assignments at checkpoints - they are are less likely to plagiarize when then turn in  small chunks of work as opposed to turning everything in at the end. Since I teacher honors classes, I also run into kids panicking that they don't have the "right" answer or results.  They are used to cookie-cutter assignments and knowing right away if something is right or wrong.  With inquiry, it is not that simple and students tend to break down.  I spend a lot of time trying to create a nurturing and kind classroom to curtail any anxiety.

My biggest challenge with assessing inquiry based activities is the fact that I run an informal educational program. Our learners come to our zoo on their own time and so, we have different groups of students for each day. This certainly makes it difficult to assign certain inquiry based projects. Most of our workshops will be a continuation of a previous one where our learners simply combine data over time. Also, because we are an informal program and do not grade anything our assessment usually leans on open ended conversations and peer to peer reviews. When my learners present a project or lead a workshop I always take notes and provide feedback at the end. We hold onto this feedback and see if they include their improvements the next time around. Overall, I feel my learners thrive in this sort of unstructured learning environment, one without any pressure or grades. The work on activities they are passionate about and are able to share that with an equally passionate community of their peers.

As many have said  time or deciding to allow them time for inquiry. Our curriculum is very broad, so it is challenging to allow the time for genuine inquiry. Still trying to find the right balance.

As others mentioned, finding time during the day to incorporate these types of activities is difficult. Our district curriculum covers all of the required standards, but there's not much 'wiggle room'. I do try to modify existing activities in our curriculum to make them more inquiry-based. This is only my second year teaching 7/8 Science, but I would eventually also like to find at least one citizen science project that connects with each of our standards. I think this would make it easier to incorporate them into our district curriculum. Assessing these projects is also a challenge because, as Mr. Kahler mentioned above, it's a process of trial and error. I do like using rubrics as a way to assess students, but that can change from year to year depending on the level of students I have. English Language Learners are going to need to be assessed a bit differently, for example (especially if they are still relatively new to the language). In the past, I have made a modified rubric for those students which allows for verbal responses rather than just written ones.

My biggest challenge as always been time (as mentioned by others). I have a lot of flexibility in my curriculum and was able to do a citizen science project as well as a science research project with my 8th grade students each year. Our schedule shifted and now I do not see my students for the entire year anymore, but instead two non consecutive terms. During this past year I was still able to do my citizen science project, but lost the science research project. To try to tackle this problem (I haven't yet!) I am going to try to stop worrying so much about it being perfect and just see what the students can accomplish in the time we do have. I love the idea of doing the citizen science project at the beginning of the year and allowing that to generate questions for our research projects. I know that the experience will benefit the students even if the final product isn't exactly where it needs to be.

My biggest challenge around inquiry in the early childhood classroom is persuading teachers to give it a try, and to understand what it really is (not just asking a bunch of questions).  Early childhood education is at it's best when it's inquiry-based.  However, many ECE teachers have limited education and experience in this model, and tend to rely heavily on how they were taught themselves (direct instruction).  They lean heavily on scripted curriculum.  Given that most EC teachers don't get any prep time, and work very long days, this isn't terribly surprising.  I've been working with our teachers around what types of questions they should use as a springboard to deeper inquiry work.  I am hoping to use the resources and ideas from this retreat to create lessons for my teachers that have some of the benefits of a scripted curriculum, in that they don't have to do too much planning, but allows for the students to guide the work.  That's the goal anyway.

The challenge in my field specifically (informal environmental education) is that we don't have students long - term. Students come for 2 hour increments and then we may never see them again. We can't do rubrics, can only do minimum peer review, and are unable to make long term goals or experiments. We take advantage of our summer camp kiddos because we have a full week with them -- this is something that I would like to promote more with our summer camp staff. To conquer our time challenges, we have to set realistic goals with what we're able to accomplish with the time that we have. We do smaller, bite - sized pieces of information to form experiments that are mainly pre - planned. During summer, we can absolutely ask campers for their "I Wonder" questions to form experiments. I'd also love to have multiple check ins with classrooms, but the challenge with this is that teachers have their own time constraints as well as COVID issues.

When we are doing inquiry-based activities I find that the buy-in from students can vary wildly from extremely invested and actively engaged to rushed, mindless "hurry and finish".  Sharing a rubric at the start, and using it as a reference while in process helps students flesh out what they are working on.  I think that knowing ahead of time that their peers (and not just the teacher) will be looking at and evaluating the finished product. I have always found organization difficult, so I have a great empathy for students who struggle with organization.  Having smaller, incremental goals (that are evaluated as they are completed) helps move those students along and minimize some of the sense of overwhelm that can happen in a longer project.

Not to sound like an echo chamber but time is one of the biggest challenges.  New York starts a little later than some other states but we all have the same AP Exam date and not having an extra week or two is though (also our Spring Break is usually pretty close to exam time which is a challenge in and of itself). Another challenge is collecting and assessing original thought.  Between sections being on different days, ABSENCES (ugh!), and "extenuating circumstances" that part of the experience has become a burden.  I actually feel like the forced move to virtual learning helped solve this.  As I have now leaned more into digital submission of assignments and labs using Google Classroom the ability to collect work on time has been much better, and the ability to type feedback to establish better communication with students has been worthwhile. After getting some of the kinks out, even as we go back to normal I expect to continue the online submission of assignments and work.

Having students do peer reviews has been challenging especially for middle school students.  Students wouldn’t take this step seriously or wouldn’t know how to make comments other than, “It’s good.” Using a checklist helped them focus on what to look for.  This combined with mini-lessons about what good comments and critiques look like helped even more.  I would like to take it even a step further and work through an example of student work (anonymous and from a previous year or class) and work through the checklist together as a class, modeling what to do. Students who enjoyed the project always did better but a lot of students only worked hard to get a good grade.  I think having students present their findings in a real-world way (like submitting to BirdSlueth Investigator, a school science conference or one of the other ideas in the curriculum) would help them see that what they are doing is valuable besides just the grade. I think the citizen science component of the project would make a difference in this aspect as well.

I've found that students really struggle with organization and deadlines. Last year especially, when so much work was done digitally, they had a hard time keeping track of documents they were working on, turned in, or hadn't even really started yet. We did one big project where I expected students to complete a background research document, create a poster or infographic, write a short proposal, film a short video explaining part of their project proposal, and create a scale model. I started keeping a Google Slide with a "progress grid" and kept that displayed on the board during project work days. A green square on a group's line meant that part was turned in, currently graded, and they were able to see feedback and make edits. A blue square meant they'd successfully turned that part in, I just had not assessed it yet. A blank/white square meant I had not received that project part yet. This visual grid seemed to help the groups plan their day, prioritize tasks, and in some cases, divide their tasks for the day.

Some challenges I’ve faced in leading and assessing inquiry-based activities definitely is the time component.  Trying to complete assignments and projects under a deadline and get through the curriculum is a big challenge for me. Having enough time to allow for the inquiry process is essential to making it a worthwhile experience to allow them to process and critically think/problem solve.  But I really try to monitor their process to make sure everyone finishes their work somewhere in the same time frame and keep the class from being too disjointed.  The other side of the coin is giving too much time, especially for those who work faster, this can create potential problems with classroom management when students are sitting idle waiting for others to catch up.

When giving students choices of what they want to research, some students embrace the opportunity to learn about something they are really interested in while others often procrastinate and have a hard time getting started in the challenge of developing their research project.  I have found that for these students, it is helpful to provide choices and examples of projects.  It is very important to have a rubric for grading the various projects that will be presented in class.  Allowing students to self assess as well as peer reviewing keeps grading honest.

One challenge I faced in inquiry based learning are the students who are devoted to the 'learn-and-repeat' style of learning.  One student in particular kept asking me, "But what is my answer supposed to be?" The level of frustration this student was reaching took away from any enjoyment that could have been obtained.  I ended up paring the student with a classmate in order for the exercise to be experienced as it should.  I had taken the time to go through the process of inquiry based learning with the class, but for some students it is still difficult to embrace when on their own.

I have dropped many a class project due to limited time to fully focus on the activity.   I understand that the inquiry based activities is a multi phased approach.  I will plan on teaching the skills of inquiry as a starting point.     Each year brings a different group of students with different skill levels.

My classes operate on a standards based assessment profile, so I don't give traditional letter or percentage based grades but rather I assess performance based on pre-vs-post assessment growth and on student participation. It works well with the inquiry based approach. While we haven't worked with citizen science projects yet, we do participate in an inquiry based math program. At first, I found challenges in allowing students enough time to explore the activities and materials before I step in with explanation, but we've figured that out in the ten years we've been working with this specific program. My challenges with assessment are mostly clerical challenges on my end. I can get so into sitting and watching kids explore and discover that I forget to keep records of participation and discoveries. It can also be a challenge to get the kids to a place where they FULLY explain their thinking when recording observations and conclusions. I still have the odd kiddo who will just write down the answer and refuse to use their words to show me how they got there. I think I may use the lemon lesson from earlier in this course as an introduction not only to making observations for science, but in writing clear explanations for math as well!

One of the biggest challenges for me is the varying starting levels of the students. Within one classroom there will be students that are really advanced and age 17 and students that are 13 and  way behind grade level.  I try and meet the students where they are at using a basic formative assessment and provide a lot of background information and present the directions one step at a time and reiterate everything that I say.  I usually pair up the students so that they can work together to problem solve. I usually don't meet with students very many times so many of my project are shorter in duration and a lot of the follow up falls on the actual classroom teacher.

When leading and assessing inquiry-based activities, I struggle with pacing and students who rush through and those who need more time.  This can cause issues when trying to do peer review, but I can usually group students who are in the same spot.  Sometimes, I may take the time to hook up a stronger student with one who is struggling and this is more beneficial than me helping that student since they are hearing tips from a peer.  I like the idea of having the students bring home their work and ask for two adult signatures.  I think this will help by receiving better quality work throughout the process.

I agree with Mr. Kahler's comments that students need a good deal of support in writing and producing scientific reports.  It is also difficult to help students critique the work of others.  I have had to redo my rubrics several times to make sure that all important issues were covered.  Also, I agree that it is best to go step by step through the rubric allowing enough time for each section.  Getting students to rewrite their work after an edit or teacher comments has been a challenge, as well.  Many of my students have not been motivated by grades, so asking them to redo or rewrite work after an edit for a higher grade has had little effect.  I believe in teaching to mastery whenever possible, but it has been a challenge to help students slow down and really learn.  I have tried presenting the same lesson objective disguised as a different lesson, but shorter and covering only the part that needs work.  This often does work, because students do not recognize that we are relearning a section that was missed before.  However, I prefer to actually work on the original paper and edit it and help students see it shape up into a great paper.

I teach 9th grade biology and environmental science for 11-12 graders. In any typical year, I have very capable students through very struggling students, including those who are just learning English, hard of hearing students, and those who dislike putting pen to paper types (or fingers to keyboards). Thus, I've struggled a lot with making peer review helpful for all. Sometimes I assign lab groups of mixed ability and students submit work as a group so that the struggling writers get to see, hear, and write with those who can lead them forwards. Sometimes, I share out various samples for kids to look at and critique (what do you like? what do you want to see improved?). A lot of time, I read before due dates and ask questions about the work. Especially working with 9th graders, I have found that students are much more likely to edit and rewrite their work if I have them write on sticky notes (I use manila folders with lab report sections headings and guidance glued in) instead of in their lab books. I still don't understand why this is, but it works. They happily toss out bogus hypotheses and graphs done on sticky notes whereas they cringe if asked to do the same in their lab books. In truth, I would rather grade manila folders than a stack of notebooks too. I do use differently sized sticky notes (and even keep some lined ones around for those who need lines) and always let the kids pick their colors. I have also found that students appreciate it when they are allowed to skip a section here or there for whatever reason. Sometimes having them draw results first and then having them describe the pictures helps them see patterns. Sometimes drawing pictures can work as a hypothesis too (what will this look like at the beginning, middle, and end?). In truth, even after lots of support I still go back to some students and ask them to explain things that I did not understand in their reports. While progress can be slow and varies widely, I think all students leave my class in the spring as better technical writers.

I am an eight-grade computer science teacher wherein our students are taught the fundamentals of computer programming following the model of computational thinking. The closest endpoint assessment (to a natural science' scientific investigation) that my colleagues and I implement at the last academic quarter is a programming design and implementation wherein we ask students to select a subject (and a specific lesson  in that subject) from their previous or current grade level where they can demonstrate their developed skills by designing then implementing a small program solving an identified computing problem. Challenge number one is guiding the students to limit the scope of their project to a challenge level that matches their expected computational thinking skills and one that is within the given time-frame. Second challenge is addressing the problem of some students who are short-circuiting the development process (with the thought that by doing so will speed-up finishing the project). Third challenge is on developing consciousness and good attention to details among students through the development of their own test data that they will use to ascertain that the program that they developed will process the test data correctly and produce precise output. Some students will turn-in haphazardly developed software that did not even underwent quality testing / check. To address these identified challenges and help students create quality projects, me and my co-teachers (teaching the same subject) uses checkpoints and/or milestones to monitor the progress of the students along the software development process (which is the scientific method version of solving a computational problem). Being able to identify students who are having difficulty with their work, give timely advice to students who are on-schedule with the project timeline, give prompt feedback to students whose work already have errors (but they themselves are not aware of) so that they can correct immediately in the process the detected problem.

When I taught 8th grade, our students first inquiry based activity was a "Conservation of Resources Case Study."  Students were asked to design a plan that use less of or save a resource by changing their, their families or another group's behavior. They were asked to implement their "plan" and collect data for 21 days.  While most students wanted to design plans that impacted their family, we also has a few plans that students who needed more support could do inside the school...i.e. encouraging people to shut of lights, turn off computers or recycle more. The first challenge was helping students to narrow their lofty ideas to a clearly defined plan. We would show students examples of past "Action Plans" and both me and my colleague, the other 8th grade teacher would model our own "Action Plan" for the year. The second challenge was having students identify their variables and write their hypothesis. We reviewed variables using examples in sports..."How do you know which athlete or team performed better?" What is being measured and how is it being measured. We then, again, looked at the Action Plan examples from previous years and I would model my hypothesis. Third challenge, collecting data...what was going to be the easiest but an accurate measurement that they could use. This is where I would conference with students in small groups based on similar Action Plans. ie. Students who were trying to conserve water when they showered...it was easier to quickly measure the inches of water in the bottom of the tub or time in the shower than trying to calculate gallons of water used. Fourth challenge, writing procedure clearly without using so many pronouns that their ideas were vague. To model a good procedure, we would have students write the procedure to making a "S'more in a toaster oven." We told students, anyone's procedure that we can follow to make a S'more gets to eat that S'more. We also told them, all pronouns, "Its" and "Thems" needed to be replaced with common nouns. Students would volunteer for me to read their procedure that I would follow the procedure. When students wrote, "Put it in the oven." The word "it" written on an index card went into the oven;-) Fifth challenge, students who DID NOT collect any data. Well, I gave them a copy of the data I collected from my plan. Sixth challenge, having students write their action plan. We gave a template to students and student's also had the previous Action Plan Case Studies to use as a model.