Focus on Inquiry

primaryinquirylearning

I’ve always thought of a blog as a diary, but the idea that there is no lock and key is somewhat frightening.  This is my very first blog that is intended to document my foray into the world of inquiry-based learning.  I have dabbled with it over the past two years, and I have to say that “dipping my toes” versus “diving in” has worked for me.   Each year, I try to think of how I can expand this approach into other areas of my teaching.   Since I just finished my Math Part 1 course at Queen’s University, my logical next step would be inquiry-based learning in math.  My goal is to blog my experiences from the start.  Often, we see the “end result” in videos that appear to be picture-perfect classrooms.  I want to document the mess, sweat, tears and successes to help me reflect upon what works, what…

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My First Blog!

primarilylearning

It’s early August and I have been asked to share my thinking about Inquiry in my grade 1 classroom through a blog.  Blogging is new to me; but I’m thinking it will be a great way to share my thoughts on everything that will be happening with my students as we explore new learning together this school year. I’m a little nervous about the blogging part – but so excited about the months ahead!

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Visioning

Changing Views

We worked on a visioning exercise today to figure out what our inquiry-based classroom goals are for this year. I decided to write a reflective blog as if this was the end of the 2012-2013 school year. Next June I hope my blog reads something like this.

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So it’s the last week of school and time to reflect on the year that was. 

There was a lot that went right this year, and a few speed bumps along the way. 

All of the students were able to identify their strengths and areas of need in terms of learning skills, multiple intelligences and learning styles. They could independently group themselves by homogeneous learning style and heterogeneous learning style. They knew the strengths of grouping them selves with like-minded learners as well as in heterogeneous groups. I guess best of all the students knew how to advocate for their own…

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Getting Started With Inquiry

Beginning with INQUIRY in Mind

It’s so true, it’s not as easy as it sounds.  After seeing multiple classrooms that were well nestled into the school year it’s so refreshing to know that I’m not the only one who feels like it’s a total mess and absolute chaos at the beginning of the year.  

It’s not until we’ve built a culture of safety, oral language skills, multiple investigations, restorative justice (the list could go on forever), and a couple mental health days….you finally get comfortable with the idea that your classroom might just work…and then something else happens and you re-evaluate.

So on Day 3 of our inquiry into the early stages of inquiry I’ve mapped out my long-range plans to account for integration and time.  Then it hit me, why not create an overarching question for each unit, so now I’m going back and re-evaluating (see what I mean?).  I’m actually quite excited…

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Welcome to the Journey!

Originally posted on learniosity:
Hello! I have been asked to keep this blog to record the why’s and how’s of what I do at the beginning of the school year.  It is my goal this year to set up my…

Inspired

I am feeling energized after three days of working with a group of elementary teachers.  I was inspired by their willingness to jump in and take their practice public.  I am looking forward to continuing to follow and post their reflections as the school year begins.

I feel like this project represents a big shift in thinking.  In the past, much of the sharing that we have done has been in “published” format – with many sets of eyes looking at things before they were shared with a wider audience.  While that kind of sharing plays and important role in our learning I also find that it reinforces a perfectionistic frame of mind and makes us feel hesitant to share our practices until we feel we have figured things out. I really hope that this project allows us the freedom to share our draft thinking and embrace the messiness and reality of teaching and learning.