MY NEW AR (action research)

THE AFFECTS OF IB (inquiry based teaching) 

(don't you hate educational acronyms) 

Essentially I see many 3 SENSED NEEDS in my classroom. My students lack leadership... so I am looking researching leadership skills and how to teach them effectively and why they are important. Secondly, my students lack skills in working together in a positive way... so I am researching collaborative grouping and how to teach and implement these groups and why they are important...  and lastly my students are just not SCIENC-Y enough for me so and I am researching the idea of essential questions and how to teach them and why they are important for student learning. 

My thought is: How will using an inquiry based style of teaching affect or change my classroom? 

During my research and reading today I came upon a LIST (and you know I like a good list) but these are

other teaching strategies that work well in conjunction with the ESSENTIAL QUESTIONING style. 

The idea is... if you are going to implement EQs successfully you should also be doing these things. 

Here goes: 

1. WAIT TIME (after you ask) & WAIT TIME II (after a student responses)

2. THINK-PAIR-SHARE

3. RANDOM CALLING (using a fish bowl or sticks) or STUDENT CALLING

Also periodically ask someone else to summarize what another student just said or their main point. Students begin to take ownership of clarifying and restating contributions!

4. CLASS SURVEYS—thumbs up/thumbs down, small white boards to write answers on an hold up (then choose someone or pair with an opposite viewpoint and explain your position) wireless polling, clickers,

5. MORE THEN ONE ANSWER—push for at least 2 or 3 different answers 

    then probe to invite comparisons and testing of ideas on the table.

6. USE PROBING QUESTION (for THINKING and SUPPORT)

To push students thinking and meaning try these questions: 

--What do you mean by…________?

--Why?

--Can you elaborate? Tell me more.

--Could you rephrase that? I don’t understand your point

--Could you give me an example or analogy to explain that?

--How does this relate to (what was said before, what we read last week)?

--Can we come up with another perspective on this?

--What are you assuming when you say that?

--Do I understand you to be saying… _________?

To ask students for SUPPORT and JUSTIFICATION try these questions: 

--Why do you think that?

--What’s your evidence?

--What’s your reasoning?

--Can you find support in the text/data?

--How does the data support your conclusion?

--But earlier, didn't we say that ______________, which seems to be at odds with

   what you are saying now. Can you clarify?

--How does that square with what the text says on page _____?

 7. DEVIL’S ADVOCATE. Try these questions:  

--I disagree. Convince me.

--How would you respond to those who say… ?

--Have you considered another perspective?

--Who as a completely different idea or reason?

--Is it really either, or? Might there be different “right” ways of thinking about this? 

Many people have laughed at me (easy to do) during small group or SAGA time when I have shared that I would be a person that would have to have a LIST of nice things to say to students or positive praise... and OK I understand that one... but I am seriously considering making a laminated sheet or bulletin board of these EXTENSION QUESTIONS in my classroom as I think it would help to PUSH my students thinking forward! Happy reading. Steal the list... I cited it in my AB (annotated bib) haha.