Kathy Short - Moving the PYP - Inquiry

- Bridge between practice and theory

- World of words - internationalism through literature - www.wowlit.org
- Literature circles leading to an interest inquiry ( children identifying the issues)
- Van Horne School of Global Inquiry -
Inquiry as a stance
- Stance of uncertainty and invitation - doesn't look the same in any classroom,
it is a belief - a stance - plays out in different ways - if you are not uncertain
about something why would you inquire into it?? Sometimes you don't feel the
invitation to explore - for a whole range of reasons...Willingness to wonder
- Reaching stance - reach beyond what you understand - facts aren't enough...I
also need to understand the why - What if?... Critiquing how the world
actually is.
- Going beyond - going beyond yourself
- Being off balance - perfectly on balance - not doing anything - feel sense of
tension - its what drives learning - things aren't quite right - spurs you to do
something
- Inquiry as a stance - kids collaborative - kids working together - Through
conversation we outgrow ourselves.
- Think of someone who epitomises an inquirer - Gerry Harsty ?? vietnam
story...obsess
- Inquiry - does it mean research?? Collecting facts?? Can be a set of procedures
rather than a stance - Where did that question come fro in the first place?? -
Important to get beyond that.
- Approaches to curriculum - curriculum as fact, as an activity / project (at the
expense of critical thinking...)(teacher as creator of the curriculum), inquiry -
beliefs
- Inquiry is natural to hpw we learn outside of school - How is it that people
engage in inquiries outside of school - how can we create this inside school?
WHY????
- Children do this naturally - wondering / deep fascination - leads to in depth
investigation - child's sense of wonder and awe
- Where did you spend a lot of time as a child - Upton Court Park - Put an x on a
spot that evoked a sense of wonder an mystery for you as a child, share this
with a partner and talk about what made this place of wonder and discovery for
you?
- Are we continuing to build upon that sense of awe and wonder at school?
- What's the difference between school knowledge and action knowledge?? -
Trying to make one box not two - Children bring that into school thats what
matters - What they are learning in school is important to their life -What we
need is wisdow school not knowledge factories - 'The wise woman and the
secret' - book - 'The secret of wisdom is to be curious - To keep on wandering
and wondering"
- Draw your classroom - Where are the places of wonder? Where are the places
that the children would draw a wonder x? Where are the spots where they get
excited to explore and discover new things.
- Word not part of childrens vocabulary - posing their wondering - what you
wonder about? Not embrace it as question - Is more of an 'I wonder' -
- Seeing the classroom as a place to wonder with a sense of awe -
bringing the outside into the classroom - Learning environment - wonder
center - a place to write your wonders, could be a center - recorded what they
were wondering about? Could be anything? - post its - Teacher to record it on
the pst it and then put it on the board - revisit it later, wonder of the week -
take time to talk about it - initially the teacher choosing it - the one wonder that
had the post it that would be the one the kids were looking at - on Friday they
did an inquiry talk - reason through it together - no right answer - children
getting to reason through an idea, inquiry wall - a daily record - decide wether
they would go on the inquiry wall - if someone could already answer it than it
shouldn't go on the wall - chart of all the strategies that the children were using
- keep a record, inquiry talks - chance to talk and to reason it through...( book
-Georgie Heard a place to wonder, Karen Gallas - Science talks), observation and
wonder journals, discovery table - see,hear,smell,feel- with pictures - draw,
list, I wonder, it reminds me of - Kids could draw and sketch beautiful and
wonder - magnifying glass - , observation window - outline on the window -
put a journal next to it, one small square / listening walks
- Inquiry is how we live - See school as a place we ask questions
- How is your classroom reflecting a stance of inquiry
- Inquiry is based in connection - One of the differences - Start by listening to
what they already know!! Gregory Batesman??? quote - Begin in children own
life experiences - connection distinguishes between tension and stress - Sea and
land - Children need to connect - don't need to feel vulnerable - Find the deep
connections to the children own life experiences - Oceans - When have you been
in the sea - When have you been in water?
- PYP - Sometimes we rush the beginning!
- Inquiry is conceptual - not the central idea - its the concepts behind that!!!!
- Water story (zurich) - got personal connection - Tower of the sun, bk - Central
idea at the start and weaving through the unit - Get to the big idea!!!! Munich -
endangered animals, What happens when something is lost forever??? The unit
started conceptually - finding and losing things
- If you start conceptually then you have the bigger idea to hang it on!!!!
- Inquiry is problem posing and problem solving - research begins with
immersing yourself in the theme - need to know before you ask questions -
- Kids as problem posers - needs to happen sometimes!! They determine the
issue that you look at - Out of the beginning, immersing, out of this comes the
questions - The person posing the problem is the person who is control.
- How do kids decide what is worth pursuing - A scientist doesn't begin with
an experiment - observing a phenomena that exists - solving a problem that
they have formulated - reasoning before the experiment - Kids don't know how
to set up their own experiment
- Inquiry - Personal Inquiry - personal passions - kids as problem posers /
solvers, make this a part of your day - make sure that you provide a space
Collaborative Inquiry - These are our units - teacher and child collaborate
Guided Inquiry - Teacher led - problem poser (shouldn't always be this!!!)
- INquiry is collaborative - Thinking together / Thinking with not just working with
- engaged in learning, activley participating - collaborating. Cooperation - work
together....Zone of proximal development!!!!!
- Inquiry invites students into communities of practice - learning how to think with
others - Community is very important!! Don't let children be out of the
community!!! early readers
Theme Units and Inquiry
- Indiana story - ocean - everything related to oceans - final project - starting off
with personal connections - then focus on learning about ocean life - set up
centres - art prints, music, science experiments, sea shells, tourist brochures,
wonder time - draw or write things they were seeing and then what they would
wonder about - the the kids shared - record wondering - somethings were whole
class - read through the chart - then grouped the related questions together -
did not want thirty individual projects - the kids then sighned up for the group of
questions that interests them. The resources were around all of the time - the
kids knew where they were - Got in a parent reader - reader was a station in
the classroom - kids decided when they needed something read to them -Need
the tools to sort out what they were finding. Exploration centres - makes a
difference in the thinking.
- Cinderella story - lots of different groups - started off in conversations-
Inquiry Cycle - the flow between experiences -
- KS needed a visual picture of the relationships - Cycle is a picture of how the
beliefs merge into practice
- Invitation - to expand knowledge - going beyond what they currently know
- Investigations are kid driven!!!!! AT Least a part of it.
- Re-Vision - reflect - time for reflection - What's significant??
- Examples - Animals and habitats - Year One story - Pets etc Tension - We want
these animals but we have nowhere to put them - Young kids - move between
invitations and investigations nearly everyday - develop small
investigations that happen everyday - curiosities and explorations.
- Why is the sky blue? Sally Grindley -
- Poverty - pity party? explore through power?? This is the connection...
- Connections are very significant!!! Might spend a week on this!
- Invitations - mini lessons that happen frequently - giving of knowledge -
otherwise the children cant ask questions?? How can they know what to ask
about?
- Sketch to stretch - What is action - sketching what it looks like...
- Connections - focus on concept and not topic - VOICE, TRUST, LISTEN,
STORY
- Why do this unit? What is the biggest idea behind the central idea? Making it
happen - Related concepts ( Key concepts are perspectives....) are usually the
biggest idea behind it? What are the engagements that support the students in
exploring this idea in their lives to develop their conceptual understanding?
- Read alouds - highlights the big idea not the topic...kids story...encourage
storying, observation - surveying their own life (h/work?) - interviewing -
soemthing from their life back into the classroom to share, survey, interview -
very simple data collection, timelines, artifacts to bring related to the idea,
sketches, flowcharts etc
- CONCEPT can run throughout the day -make this easier
- Invitations - to go beyond current perspectives, experiences and
knowledge - Time, choice,observation, conversation
- Guided inquiry into 2-3 main lines of inquiry
- Be selective - goal is not coverage but expanding knowledge to build
understanding and to create and raise tensions
- Engage kids actively in exploration - text sets - real aloud and then keep
them in a basket!!, book and toys sets
- Start closest to the kids
- Choose key pieces of fiction - powerful use of non-fiction - fiction takes it back to
the BIGGER CONCEPT
- Planning to plan - predictive plan - Dorothy Watson - plan emerges in
negotiation with students
After you can plan the process but not the content!!!!!
- Sketch to stretch - sketch your connection to the story - (Bk, Hey world here I
am) Read and then sketch your connection to the story