Beyond Curriculum Mapping: Using Technology To Delve Deeper into Inquiry Learning(4)

Beyond Curriculum Mapping: Using Technology To Delve Deeper into Inquiry Learning
by Pamela Morehead, Ph.D., and Barbara LaBeau
Next, an opening event or activity was implemented that stimulated interest initially for the whole class. The activity consisted of her reading The Magic School Bus Inside a Bee Hive and used Discovery‘s Unitedstreaming video clips to illustrate "a bee‘s life." These experiences led to the children‘s idea about using the nature area for observing bees and ants as "community" insects. For older elementary school children, it can be interesting to collect ideas from the whole class and map out what they already know about the topic from their own experience. The class creates a topic web plan or research construct. Inspiration or SmartIdeas are useful software tools for organization of thoughts.
The teacher uses this opportunity to assess what the students already know about and have experience with in regards to the topic. This informal assessment allows the teacher to determine needs of the students to ensure a comprehensive learning experience for each child.
The next step involved the teacher encouraging questions or wonderings from the children. The children were asked what they would like to investigate during the project. The teacher posted questions in the classroom and added more questions to the list each day. In our second grade example, the students generated many questions after the teacher took them to the nature center to study it, collected data and determined whether the nature area (garden) was a community. Many questions emerged as they shared, reviewed, discussed, and debated the information collected, as well as their prior knowledge. The questions were reviewed, revised, and discussed for a day or two before moving on to Phase 2.
During Phase 2, students think about, discuss, predict, and record what they are likely to see during their fieldwork. In this example, the fieldwork involved an off site learning experience in the nature area. Before they began their study, students were assisted by the teacher assisted in narrowing down which questions they were able to investigate, which "experts" they may contact, and objects they might bring back to the classroom.
During their visits to the nature area, they took notes, made sketches, and took digital photos of what they were most interested in and about what they would most like to learn.
The teacher had the children take backpacks or fanny packs to store materials during the experience. The packs included writing and drawing tools, sketchpads or clipboards, digital cameras, and tape recorders. (MP3 players would work great!) Fieldwork followup is critical to include in phase 2. The children discussed the field trip; shared accounts of what happened; and explained their sketches and photos, "experts" they interviewed, and observations of what they saw and what they learned.
In the role of facilitator, the teachers assisted the children with the organization of the information gathered using questioning prompts such as, "How can we put all of our information together?" In this project, a large bulletin board in the room was the perfect area for display of data. The sketches became drawings that became more detailed murals or paintings in Phase 3 or used for plans for the construction of representations of their learning using a variety of art medium. In fact, the digital photos and drawings were developed into a large mural for this project in phase 3.
The students collected data on observations they made in the nature center. The students, upon returning to the classroom, charted their collective findings and created a graph on Tom Snyder‘s Graph Club. A poster-sized graph was posted in the classroom for further reference regarding the nature center. Students were encouraged to use information books and the Internet (with a hot list developed for student research) to confirm their understandings or raise new questions.
Based on the year-long theme of "community," the teacher needed to have the students understand that the nature area is part of a larger a community, and not just the community of bees.
Another focus for the community project was expanding to human communities--rural, suburban, and urban. Ultimately, the teacher facilitated a compare and contrast of the insect and human communities.
For the study of urban communities, the students invited visiting experts or used distance learning to have first-hand experience of the topic under study. Visiting experts talked to the children and answered questions. The teacher, continuing the study of communities, planned a field trip to a nearby urban area. The job of the students during the field trip was to record the various services and buildings in the community, taking pictures and drawing pictures. Students also conducted interviews concerning the jobs of people in the community. A group of students interviewed a civil engineer about their job. Several students posed the question of, "Where does the rainwater go in the city?" Once walked over without consideration, the drainage cover was now an item of fascination and further study! The students in the photo "discovered" a drainage sewer cover and delighted in their finding.
Phase 3 included a culminating activity, projection, presentation, or representation. The activity involved communicating, sharing, and presenting the students‘ representational learning from the project to others who may be interested. This provided an excellent opportunity and real purpose to review and evaluate the learning that has taken place over the course of several days or weeks. For example, the second grade class created a brochure about the city they visited entitled, "A Second Grade View of a City." The brochure contained their scanned sketches, digital photos, interviews, and descriptions of their experiences. The second graders then presented a copy of the brochure to all of the businesses and locations they visited and their families.
These representational learning opportunities provide the students with a way to express their learning and understandings. The children needed the opportunity to engage in a process of reflection of the learning. The teacher offered the children creative ways of representing and expressing their new knowledge through art, stories, drama, construction, and other learning media--in this example, the brochure idea. In phase 3 the teacher assesses the students‘ understanding of the essential learnings. Additionally, the teacher evaluated whether the students found the answers to the essential questions.
Upper Elementary Inquiry Project
A fourth-grade teacher approached inquiry learning in her classroom using the nature center as the central theme of the classroom study. Students‘ interest in recycling in the school and the community allowed for the extension of recyclers in the nature center. A worm bin was set up in the room, serving as the unifying object. The collection of data from the worms‘ food and excretion served as mathematical inquiry and allowed the students to construct graphs and charts of the information. Information gathered from video streaming, experts from distance learning, and information from research on the Internet proved to be invaluable student inquiry.
The students‘ interest in the garden also prompted them to research historical and botanical information for additional plantings in the nature center. Understanding plant growing needs and cycles and determining the flora and fauna across the regions of the United States allowed the students to determine what to plant in the garden. Inquiry into economics was a natural when monies were needed to purchase the plants. The financial need translated into the production of stationery, from the dried flowers, and from the collection of seeds for sale.
Final Thoughts
Staff members continually work on making meaningful connections between their curriculum and role of technology in the learning process. We contend that the process of curriculum mapping focused the teachers on understanding critical curriculum content, essential questions and integration of technology. The teachers are all at different levels of this understanding as to how it translates into their instruction. The curriculum mapping process was the beginning of our knowledge of how inquiry can lead to more conceptual understandings of content. As teachers continue to informally share with us their ongoing instructional changes, we feel we assisted in providing a better map for the journey that this school took toward technology integration.
References
Katz, L. G., & Chard, S. C. (2000). Engaging children‘s minds: The project approach (2nd ed.). Stamford, CT: Ablex Publishing Corporation. Morehead, P., & LaBeau, B. (2004). Successful curriculum mapping: Fostering smooth technology integration. Learning and Leading with Technology, 32(4), 12-17.
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About the authors: Pamela Morehead is an assistant professor at Oakland University in Rochester, MI and a former elementary school principal. Barbara LaBeau is an instructor at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, MI and an independent technology consultant for TACTICS.
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Cite this Site
Pamela Morehead, Ph.D., and Barbara LaBeau, "Beyond Curriculum Mapping: Using Technology To Delve Deeper into Inquiry Learning," T.H.E. Journal, 4/12/2007, http://www.thejournal.com/articles/20499
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