Inquiry Learning in Action: Uncovering Ancient China and Africa

It has been an exciting year at DPMS, and I cannot believe that in just over a month it will be over. While I am proud of many accomplishments this year, one that I am most excited to share is our implementation of guided inquiry learning across the content areas. Last summer, I traveled to Rutgers University with a wonderful team to learn more about Guided Inquiry Design from the creators of the model themselves. During a three day intensive training, we delved into all things Guided Inquiry as we learned about the model's intricacies and the best practice strategies for immersing our students into this type of learning. The result was an enthusiastic commitment from our team to incorporate this model into an array of content area units.

Through our work this year, we have redesigned units in ELA, Science, and Social Studies to include elements of Guided Inquiry Design. Two units that I am especially proud to share are from 7th grade Social Studies. Students studied both Ancient China and modern day Africa while following the entire GID process from beginning to end. After being immersed in the content and exploring a variety of related research topics, students wrote their own research questions about a topic that interested them.

As final products, students studying Ancient China created virtual museums while those studying Africa created public service announcements. Both projects showcase deep content learning as can be seen from the projects linked on both Ancient China and Africa websites that I created to share all student work.

What did our students think of learning this way? I was curious, so I grabbed a few students and conducted my own interviews. Watch the video below to hear how much our students loved learning through Guided Inquiry Design.

You can learn more about Guided Inquiry Design by visiting the GID website and by reading the 52 Weeks of GID blog.

Uncovering Ancient Egypt The 21st Century Way

It's no secret that I am a huge proponent of global collaboration. As 21st century global citizens, it's essential for our students to engage in experiences that expose them to diverse groups of people from different parts of the world. Modern technology not only allows for quick and easy communication, but it also allows for a multitude of collaboration opportunities. Partnering with seventh graders from Hillsboro Middle School in Hillsboro Township, New Jersey, students worked in small groups to create collaborate Ancient Egypt ABC books.

Prior to working together, it was important for the students to meet and learn a little bit about one another. Their initial meeting took place as a Mystery Hangout where the students attempted to guess one another's physical locations by asking questions that could only be answered with yes or no. A followup Hangout was necessary to allow the students time to ask more personal questions about their respective schools, cities, likes, and dislikes. Since these students were basically strangers to one another, it was important for them to build a bit of a personal connection prior to working together toward a common goal.

The next step in the process involved planning. Since it was not feasible for students to speak directly with one another during every step of the project, we set up a collaborative group Voicethread to allow for asynchronous communication. With Voicethread, students could quickly and easily add their own webcam, text, and audio comments and listen to comments left by other students when their schedules allowed.

Finally, it was time to create the ABC books with Google Slides. Students added relevant information to their assigned slides in order to produce one comprehensive ABC book.



This project was an engaging way for students to not only engross themselves in Ancient Egypt and with new technologies, but it also provided an opportunity for real-world virtual collaboration. This is what 21st century learning is all about!

Around the US (and Canada) with Mystery Skype

During the past couple of weeks, seventh graders in Mrs. Krebsbach's and Mrs. Allen's Social Studies classes traveled to different parts of the US and Canada by connecting with other classrooms through Mystery Skypes. Once the game was over, and when time remained, it was fun to ask getting-to-know you questions such as "How many students are in your school?" and "What is the weather like in your city?" We had a GREAT time meeting students from different locations!

Sharing our Journey into Guided Inquiry

This has been year of new beginnings- a new staff, a brand new group of students (who continue to amaze me), even a new library automation system, collection, and curriculum. All of these changes have been rewarding and exciting. In particular, I have been most excited about collaborating with many passionate, risk-taking teachers. Specifically, working alongside Literacy Coach, Peggy Rohan, I helped to implement the guided inquiry model into research units on Mesopotamia, fracking, and the Native American mascot controversy. This model emphasizes a more student-centered approach to learning as students go through stages of immersion, investigation, intensifying research, synthesizing information, and publicly sharing their learning.

Our journey into guided inquiry began with what I refer to as "The Great GID Experiment." When seventh grade Social Studies teacher, Cara Krebsbach, approached Peggy and me for new ideas on how to teach one of her first units on Mesopotamia, we jumped at the chance to introduce guided inquiry. The guided inquiry approach not only forces students to think at a higher level and work more independently, but it also allows students to make more choices, collaborate, and dive deeper into the research process- skills that are essential for all 21st century learners. While introducing guided inquiry during the Mesopotamia unit was a fantastic experience, there were many lessons learned along the way. This week Peggy and I are sharing our story with a larger community through the 52 Weeks of Guided Inquiry blog. Organized by Guided Inquiry Design author, Leslie Maniotes, each week features guest bloggers from around the world who are sharing their stories about using the guided inquiry model. Our journey into guided inquiry has been challenging, engaging, frustrating, but ultimately rewarding. It has been exciting to share our story with the world and receive feedback from others who can relate to our experience.

Please check out our story and those of many others by visiting the 52 Weeks of Guided Inquiry blog. We would love to hear your feedback about what we have done so far!

Navigating through US history with My Maps

Fifth graders in Mr. Wegner's Social Studies classes have turned to Google Maps to showcase their learning. Using Google's My Maps, students pinned specific locations on a Google Map and then added descriptions, images, and videos for each location to create virtual tours of important landmarks and locations in early American history.  If you are curious about some of the important details and places related to the American Revolution and the US Constitution, view these examples below.  Click on each pin to read what our fifth graders have learned about each location and how it relates to that part of American history. 

Presenting the Great Minds of Ancient Greece!

Sixth graders in Mrs. DeMoulin's Social Studies classes found a creative way to learn more about Ancient Greek philosophers: create their own videos using the green screen! After each group did its own independent research on a chosen Greek philosopher, the students wrote scripts and recorded their videos using the app Green Screen by Do Ink. Videos were then edited with iMovie and uploaded to YouTube for sharing. View some of their examples below to learn more about the great minds of Ancient Greece.

 



 

Explorer App Smash with Photo Mapo, Pic Collage, and Thinglink

After learning about explorers in Social Studies, Mr. Wegner's 5th graders were excited to show everyone what they know.  Mr. Wegner and I developed a fun project that allowed students to share their knowledge and gave them a chance to play around with smashing the apps Photo Mapo, Pic Collage, and Thinglink.

First, students used the app Photo Mapo to create a map collage of the place that their assigned explorer discovered.  They also included some information about the route that the explorer took and the place of discovery.

Next, students used Image Quest to find copyright-free images that represented their explorers.  They then created a collage in the app Pic Collage.  They also added their image created in Photo Mapo to their Pic Collage, giving them the chance to see how easy it is to smash these two apps together.

Once the collage was complete, students uploaded this image to Thinglink to create an "interactive image."  In Thinglink, students were able to add "hotspots" to each image to highlight information that was important about the explorer.  Their hotspots included videos of themselves describing the explorer, links to relevant websites, other images, and text comments.

Here are some of the 5th graders' finished products.  They had a blast doing their first app smash!

Exploring the Web to Learn about Explorers

All fifth graders began working on a research project involving famous explorers.  To get them ready for research, the students came in with their Social Studies teachers to learn a few things about researching from Mrs. Young.

Students completed an online scavenger hunt for an assigned explorer.  Their mission: answer some basic questions about the explorer using two websites.  They needed to be good researchers and check both links for the needed information.

As students began digging into the facts, some discovered something interesting: each site had different information.  Students then worked in teams to discuss the similarities and differences of each site and figure out what to do to resolve the problem of the conflicting information.

At the end of the lesson, students understood the big picture- the Internet is not always a reliable tool for research, and it is important to be familiar with a topic before beginning research online.  We also read a fabricated article about Christopher Columbus in class from the website All About Explorers, and learned that this site was made for the sole purpose of teaching students how important it is not to believe everything that they read online.  Many students had an ah ha moment when we read the article aloud as many admitted to only skimming their articles for answers, not reading them closely.  Therefore, they missed discovering some of the obvious clues that showed this site a fake.

The next day, students returned to the library for part 2 of the lesson: If the Internet is not always trustworthy, where do I find the good stuff?  Mrs. Young defined subscription databases and showed links to the ones that our school has available to them.  She also compared the publication of a book to the publication of a website which exemplified why printed books are excellent, trustworthy research resources.

It was a big lesson for the fifth graders, but one that will hopefully stick with them as they engage in future research projects.