Another Great Collaborative Inquiry

Students in Mr. Lewis's class were inquiring into their friends' interests at school, hobbies outside of school, and places they like to visit.

A Sea Animal Inquiry

A Peaceful Protest

Mr. Lewis's KG class inquired into sea animals.  They were interested in learning:

• What does my animal need to survive?
• Where does my animal live?
• How can it live there?
• How can we help these animals survive?

To culminate their learning, the students chose to lead a peaceful protest and share with others the importance of not polluting the oceans.

 

A Celebrations Inquiry

Make a Class Book of New Learning

Kindergarten students have been busy inquiring into tree frogs in Ms. Burant's class.  They have wondered, researched, interviewed experts, observed, and reflected on their learning.  Each student has chosen a fact to share in their class book, The Green Tree Frog: Fun Facts.

Students made the posters in Pic Kids.

A High School Interim student, Matt, compiled the posters into a class book using the app, Book Creator.

Here is a video showing the almost finished book.  A few students have been absent who need to contribute to the book and a few more voices need recording.

What do you know about peace? An Intro to an Inquiry

Kindergarten students in Ms. wan's class are going to begin an inquiry into peace.  In order to activate any prior knowledge and 'tune in' to information students already know, Ms. Wan asked that each student share what the word peace made them think.  Here is a video.    

Using Kid Techxperts to Teach Apps

Students in Mrs. Clark's class were faced with a dilemma.  They needed to learn how to use four different apps in only two 40 minute learning blocks.  How could they do it?

Through a guided discussion students shared ideas about how, when, why, and by whom.  They began by deciding that they could only learn 2 apps a day.  Next, they thought about the fact that some students already knew some of the apps.  After that, they debated on how a student could teach other students an app.  Then, students self-selected which app they felt was their 'expert app'.  Lastly, students applied a technique from PE for grouping off in order to group students with a kid techxpert in class.  Finally, each student techxpert took a small group of students and demonstrated the functions of the app for five minutes.  Once the five minutes had gone, the other students got their ipads and practiced what they had learned.  The student techxpert would monitor and support the others while practicing.

Over the 2 days, we completed the process for all 4 apps so students had the opportunity to either be the techxpert or learner.  Not only did these lessons accomplish our goal of students learning how to use 4 out of the 6 core apps for first grade, more importantly, it set a foundation in the classroom that students saw each other as excellent ipad/app experts and resources.

 

KG Share their New Learning about the Human Body

Mr. Lewis's class finished their guided inquiry on the human body and shared their new learning with some pre-k students.  It was exciting to see how quickly the kindergartners partnered up with a younger student and dove straight into explaining their models about the human body. I overheard one student saying, "You see the lungs are here [pointing to a printed picture of internal human anatomy] and here they are in my model too."  Students also shared how the sides of the brain control the opposite side of the body.  Other students explained how veins take blood back to the heart.

Mr. Lewis's students were very proud to be able to teach the pre-k kids and demonstrate how they had become experts about what is inside their bodies.

Here is a short video of their inquiry.

     

A Shared Inquiry

Mr. Lewis, a kindergarten teacher, began a shared inquiry with his class and then asked the librarian, Ms. Cuthbert, and me to join him on their learning journey.

It has been exciting to watch the students explore together a topic they found intriguing.  We are only in the first stages of our inquiry according to Kath Murdoch's model.  Below are some photos detailing what those stages have looked like with Mr. Lewis's class.