February 17,
2002
What is Inquiry?
(with thanks to John Dewey)
• Thinking arises from experience
• Any experience which involves contact with a new
situation or material proceeds initially through trial and error
• Trial and error consists initially of more-or-less
inchoate interaction of the person’s energy with the materials
•
By seeing how to
materials respond to this interaction, the person begins to learn about the
materials, and can begin to plan more fruitful interactions
What is Inquiry? continued
•
Some interactions
involve thought; others are completely inchoate or completely routine
•
To arouse
thought, the situation must be sufficiently new to block routine from dealing
effectively with it, but not so new as to give the learner no leverage for
building on prior experiences or knowledge
•
Effective
situations for inquiry are those that arouse the learner’s interest and engage
his or her activity
•
Out of school
experiences are often more engaging than in-school experiences
•
Learners need something
to do and something to learn
•
The activity
called for should be the kind that requires thinking: the “intentional noting
of connections”
What makes a problem a good candidate for inquiry?
The
following questions (From John Dewey) may aid in making such discrimination.
•
Is there anything
but a problem? Does the question naturally suggest itself within some situation
or personal experience? Or is it an aloof thing, a problem only for the
purposes of conveying instruction in some school topic? Is it the sort of
trying that would arouse observation and engage experimentation outside of
school?
•
Is it the pupil's
own problem, or is it the teacher's or textbook's problem, made a problem for
the pupil only because he cannot get the required mark or be promoted or win
the teacher's approval, unless he deals with it?
Summary:
•
Does the problem
lead to observation, experimentation, thinking?
•
Does the student
care about the problem?
One important issue in framing student inquiry
• The
best kinds of problems arise from the students’ own experiences
• Schools
have “curriculums” or agendas for student learning that often “push out” the
students’ own experiences
• Methods
need to be found to enable student interests and school subject-matter to
interact in dynamic and contextual ways
Why is inquiry a good thing?
• The
future is uncertain: young people need
skills for solving future (not-yet-defined) problems
• The
world is diverse: people need practice dealing with “messy”
reality and complex situations
• Morality
requires inquiry, not just the application of predefined rules
Examples of problems likely to generate student inquiry
•
Science for older
kids: Predict the effects of global
warming on your future.
(see http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/impacts/)
•
Social
Studies: What is the role of water in
shaping Israeli policy toward Palestinians
(see http://www.pij.org/xjournal.htm?jid=13)
How does the Web help support Inquiry?
• The
Web includes a relatively robust range of resources related to almost any subject
(educational or not!) you can imagine:
Text:
http://remember.org/soapmaker/
Current
events: http://www.israeldaily.com/
Images: http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/vie/Eilat.html
virtual
reality: http://www.stoa.org/metis/
Maps:
http://www.mideastweb.org/maps.htm
Models: http://www.yucs.org/~rweiser/mikdash/mizbeach.html
Games: http://www.numeracyresources.co.uk/sunny.html
Sacred texts: http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0101.htm
Sacred
readings: http://www.maxsynagogue.com/
Timelines: http://www.mideastweb.org/timeline.htm
How does the Web help support Inquiry? continued
• The
Web facilitates coordinated communication between students and other people all
over the world
• The
Web can support an astonishing array of activities (computerized and not)
• Web-based
lessons or units can allow students to work at their own pace, or outside of
the regular school day
Dangers on the Web
• Inappropriate content (pornography,
advertising, inflammatory web sites; no examples needed!)
• Difficult searching (needle in a haystack; too much of
a good thing)
• Mindless surfing (like
channel-surfing on TV!)
• Endless perfectionism (“just let me look a little
while longer for the perfect picture to illustrate my report”)
How to avoid the dangers
• Teachers must review and select appropriate content
• Students need to learn how to distinguish valuable
material from propaganda
• Searching skills need to be taught
• Students should pursue specific tasks rather than
merely surfing (more on this in a moment)
• Focus should be on content and not making things
“pretty” or “cool”; need evaluative rubrics to encourage substantive
improvements in products of student work
Webquests
•
Definition: “An
inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners
interact with comes from resources on the Internet." --Bernie Dodge (San Diego State University)
•
Elements:
– Introduction: creates context for learning; relates
task to other subjects or future events
– Task: must be a real open-ended question with multiple
possible responses
– Description of Process: includes level of detail
appropriate to task and learners; includes description of roles within a
cooperative group
– Resources: both Web-based and other resources (paper,
people, tools)
– Assessment: usually includes rubric containing criteria
and developmental scale
– Conclusion: provides opportunity for closure,
connection to bigger picture or issues
Example Webquests
Curriculum Webs
• A curriculum web is a web page or pages designed to
support a curriculum (which is a plan for a sustained process of teaching and
learning)
• Webquests are a type of curriculum web, organization
around one investigation or inquiry. Curriculum webs can also be designed to
support multiple inquiries, an entire unit, or several units.
• The Web Institute for Teachers at the University of
Chicago teaches teachers how to make curriculum webs
Curriculum Webs
developed in the Web
Institute for Teachers, University of Chicago
Additional Resources
(with thanks to Tamar Friedman)
•
Jewish Online
and Interactive Learning resources collected by Noah's
Multimedia Communications Network, http://www.nmmc.net/Guide/tech.online.html
•
A site where
you can listen to the Torah reading and follow it along; great for Bar Mitzvah
boys: http://bible.ort.org/books/torahd5.asp
•
A vibrant Torah
and Halacha discourse from the Jewish orthodox population at U of Penn
http://pages.nyu.edu/~asr209/chaburas.html
The end
Questions or comments?
The Web Institute for
Teachers web site is http://webinstituteforteachers.org