Nini
Forum Replies Created
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In Special Education, I think that my job as support staff may be in supporting the student understanding of the rubric and breaking it into manageable pieces that demonstrate their understanding of the subject. I have observed for some students that how they feel about themselves influences their ability to ask questions. I envision a lot of prompting to help get this process going. I do think that a clear understandable rubric is a very important part of assessment which should be presented at the beginning of the project, but also revisited throughout the project. I like the reflection piece which asks how the student could do better next time, isn't that an important goal for all learning?
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I like your commentary about Seesaw and think that it is very important to work with students to help them use it more completely so that when they are in a remote learning setting, it becomes the powerful tool for reporting out and sharing that it should be. As I think back to this spring, I still worry about our students who are not as supported in the home as if in school, and how that influences their learning. I hope that we as educators can find ways to support those situations more fully.
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It is a gift to read these comments from different styles of educators. Kandis, I like your comments about allowing for a large variety of reporting and letting them choose the best way to showcase their results.
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I really like your comment that rubrics are roadmaps that help direct student learning. It helps them to see the expectation for the project and gives increments so they are able to focus on specific aspects of the expectations. I think rubrics help scaffold the learners' understanding of how to do the project.
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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.
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@Elisabeth I agree with both Elisabeth and Taylor regarding how a teacher supports/guides without letting the student fall or do something wrong. I also feel on the periphery of education in my role as a support staff person.
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I, too, am not always in a regular ed classroom, but on a different end of the spectrum working with Special Ed students. I like your point about looking at things holistically and I think we could grow our learners to better understanding of the world by weaving their understanding of how things are interconnected.
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I like your phrase 'ignite curiosity' and definitely agree with your observations of a rural school community. I think that the inquiry based learning is a path which can help to bring more students on board, and I do wonder how it will be as we reenter the school year in this unknown covid place. Does technology allow for better collaboration?
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Edna, I have seen this happen when helping in Middle School classes. It is interesting how different skill sets and the strengths that a group of students have is not always appreciated by all members leading some to do little, while others feel the need to most of the project. I myself can identify with this striving for a high level, but I have experienced times when a facilitator seems to 'magically' invite all members to share their strengths and this leads to wonderful collaboration. My role is an Ed Tech, and I appreciate the art of teaching witnessed as I support a skilled teacher who brings a level of safety to their students when it comes to collaboration.
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You have reminded me of another topic that might have a more finite length of time of observing ladybugs, (the fall). I am going to look into this and think about how I can find a teacher with whom to work to collect data on ladybug species.
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I chose CoCoRaHS because I had tracked the weather with a student while working virtually this past school year. I think that it offers opportunities to follow the weather, to advance in number recognition and to possibly collaborate with other students from our school. CoCoRaHS is a citizen-science organization which just celebrated its 22nd anniversary. It started in Colorado after a significant rain event fell on one side of Fort Collins, and this caused flash flooding which killed 5 people. The Colorado Office of Community Management offered a grant to try to get students and families to track the weather to more accurately represent precipitation during the summer months. Three students from three separate high schools were among the initial group to work to record precipitation. Over the years, it has grown to include all 50 states. What I found interesting is that anyone can choose a state and even a county and look at data from the present day or historically for as long as it has been measured in that state. You do not have to have an account to see the data, yet the sky is the limit for the questions a person could ask to observe weather patterns and events over the past 22 years. With this level of information, it seems that inquiry could include comparisons of different counties in Maine, or more regional comparisons. I am envisioning some way to create an interactive 'puzzle' which would be mounted somewhere on our playground to help learn the 16 counties of Maine. My hope is that we can get a weather station mounted somewhere near our playground so that the incoming students can observe the precipitation, record and report their findings. I am also thinking of ways to represent different types of graphs also mounted somewhere on the playground (perhaps in the woods along a trail) which would allow some outside applications of representing data for younger students. Some of the challenges will include making sure that it is consistently checked and working with other teachers to explore the data and ask the questions.
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I think it is important to establish that all ideas are valued, and set the scene for support and collaborative ideas. I too was the shy one in class who listened far more often than I talked. The gift of having a teacher who could recognize this and then facilitate sharing from the most talkative to the shyest in a way that allowed for growth in confidence as well as respect for other perspectives from the group. I'm thinking about this spring when we were doing remote learning. I developed a series of videos with a theme, and filmed things in nature. I began to guide the viewer to observe rather than always name, and tried to model open-ended questions. Through this class, I am learning that I will need to keep honing this skill of asking good questions.
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What a great idea to have the children 'be' the animal you are studying. That brings the level of connection that much deeper.
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This reminds me that a teacher is a guide and helping to guide a discussion into that safe open ended inquiry mode when it has turned to more closed one answer questions is the true art of a good teacher. My role as a support staff allows me to watch good teaching in action, and learn from the different styles.
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I haven't spent much time this week on using the described apps. I do take a lot of photographs of plants and so I used iNaturalist to identify a plant. I wondered about accuracy and whether species living in an alpine environment might be different than what was named. I can imagine that using Seek would be a way to engage our elementary students in finding out what is living on the trail next to their playground. This could lead to developing signs giving information about the plants or making a field guide.
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@Michelle Great idea about the camera. Was it a motion sensor camera?
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I like the just doing sounds and then just sight and then combining them. Interesting.
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You raise some interesting points that I hadn't considered. First the Decibel X app to measure the depth of the sounds. I also like how you use this in different ways to work with different ages and include the mindfulness/consciousness/awareness component. I thought your point about not 'hearing' the different birds was very interesting and this reminds me of how challenging it can be to share the excitement of bird songs with beginners, but how challenging it can be for them to differentiate. I also was interested to consider the habitualization of sounds. I walk the same road many days of the week and listen for bird sounds. I try to keep a mental note of them each morning, but as I proceed through the spring and summer, I think I don't always note the ones I hear, like robins in early spring are so very special, and then I don't always recognize them later on. Finally, your reference to urban birds and how they have adjusted the pitch of their songs is very interesting. I wonder if this happens where they are breeding, or if adjustment happens in their non breeding place as well.
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I think your point about repeating the process to further hone the inquiry process is really important and I like that you are challenging yourself to provide great follow up questions and guide their curiosity.
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I think Jennifer said it so well, that by asking questions that empower a person to make observations that contribute to a theory without making the person feel stupid for not knowing a particular answer. This has changed the way I walk in the woods or other natural setting with kids. I realized that when I named a particular animal or plant, it sort of stopped the learning process that could happen if time were allowed to make observations and share them. One of the most important things to learn when first encountering something new is simply to observe it and its relationship with other things with the fresh mind of a beginner. The mindset of wondering allows for creative thoughts about what you see and can open up thoughts in ways that naming it as either 'right or wrong' can shut down the process of curiosity. In my own learning, I am often timid in offering answers because I am afraid of being wrong, but leading a conversation with 'I wonder' statements allows for ideas that may be proven wrong upon further investigation, to flow and be shared and stretched to grow further learning.
