Inquiry Learning

For the past nine years, I have been a special education collaborative teacher working with third and fourth graders. Over the course of these years, inquiry learning has always been a component of lessons with the use of essential questions in each content area. However, we now have moved beyond just having these lesson-focused questions to where we are constantly encouraging students to be active and engaged learners who ask questions and attempt to find solutions individually or with peers as a community of learners. A few years ago we began implementing Dan Meyer’s Three-Act Tasks during our math class once a week. The majority of the students enjoyed the process of asking any questions they wanted about the first task. My favorite part is always observing and listening to the discussions regarding which questions are the most poignant towards finding an ultimate solution. This year our social studies classes were highly engaged while learning about the siege of Boston in 1775-1776, the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and life on the Oregon Trail because they had problems to discuss and attempt to solve, build models, and tried to strategize as if they were participants. I believe inquiry learning goes beyond just the facts that anyone can look up on some website. Inquiry learning requires students and teachers who are willing to ask tough questions and have opportunities to interact with the facts to promote engagement, interest, and understanding of topics.



I have been trying to determine what my lessons will be about. This has actually been a very challenging activity for me this week. At this current moment, I believe I am going to focus my mini-lessons on reading fluency. This is an area that I have been attempting to move from a weakness to a strength, so I’m going to give it a try. There are eight principles of inquiry-based learning that I will attempt to address in my three mini-lessons.

Authenticity - When it comes to the reading fluently, the importance and relevance need to be made clear. Reading is a skill one uses throughout their lives whether within the school walls or beyond. It allows the individual to comprehend ideas, entertain, communicate, and gain greater knowledge. As one becomes more fluent, internal motivation rises, leading to the desire to read more. However, poor fluency leads to poor comprehension and a loss of motivation.

Deep Understanding - In my experiences with reading fluency, many students struggle not because they don’t know their letter-sound correspondence but because they lack strategies to determine the sounds of vowels. Providing students the opportunity to understand that they do have a great base upon which to build, is a way to understand and focus on their weaknesses. Helping students see the flaws in their preconceived ideas pertaining to their reading inability, hopefully, begins the process of building up their confidence and engagement. From this point, developing individual reading goals with the students takes them to that deep understanding of themselves as readers and learners.

Assessment - Using a variety of assessments provides the opportunity to check in on individual growth and progress towards their goals. I’m not quite sure how to address this at this time. Some ideas include using vocaroo.com and rate themselves based on a rubric, providing peer feedback with a glow and a grow, etc.

Appropriate Use of Technology - We are fortunate that all students in our district have access to myon.com which provides thousands of high-interest digital books which are read by a human reader. Students love them. This technology gives students the opportunity to listen to books on their independent and instructional reading level. There are a great number of strategies to use that include listening to a passage and then re-reading it independently, attempting to keep up with the audio reader and highlighted words, etc. Technology motivates students in school or at home. Having access to these sites at home provides an opportunity to continue the learning with parents, siblings, grandparents, whomever. Also, creating individual Google Docs, students can record challenging words but also attempt to determine the meaning of those words using various strategies.

Performances of Understanding - Providing students opportunity to actually read aloud a paragraph or page they have practiced or described main elements of their reading are strategies I am thinking about incorporating to fulfill this principle. Still working this out.

Connecting with Experts - I like the idea of Skyping with an author or enjoying a read aloud with the media specialist. In each instance, providing the students' opportunity to ask questions such as, “Why did you read the dialogue that way?” can give great insight for students struggling with reading fluency.

Student/Learner Success - Student success will be determined by each individual’s progress towards their goals. Students will be able to use multiple methods; a video recording using screencastify, reading one on one, or audio recording using audacity, screencastify, or vocaroo.

Ethical Citizenship - Incorporating copyright laws and digital citizenship components into my first mini-lesson seems appropriate. For these mini-lessons, I envision students accessing various websites and providing them with information on how to be safe consumers of information.