# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Cybrary Man's Educational Web Sites The internet catalogue for students, teachers, administrators & parents. Over 20,000 relevant links personally selected by an educator/author with over 30 years of experience.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
by Terry Heick

At TeachThought, nothing interests us more than students, as human beings. What they know, might know, should know, and do with what they know.

A driving strategy that serves students-whether pursuing self-knowledge or academic content-is questioning. Questioning is useful as an assessment strategy, catalyst for inquiry, or "getting unstuck" tool. It can drive entire unit of instruction as an essential question. In other words, questions transcend content, floating somewhere between the students and their context.

Questions are more important than the answers they seem designed to elicit. The answer is residual-requires the student to package their content to please the question-maker, which moves the center of gravity from the student's belly to the educator's marking pen. In that light, I was interested when I found the visual above.
It's okay to say "I don't know." Teach your students how to develop questions (because) it helps conquer their own confusion.
Rebeca Zuniga was inspired to create the above visual by the wonderful Heather Wolpert-Gawron (from the equally wonderful edutopia, and also her own site, tweenteacher). The whole graphic is wonderful, but it's that I don't know that really resonated with me. Traditionally, this phrase is seen as a hole rather than a hill. I don't know means I'm missing information that I'm supposed to have.
See Also: Sentence Stems To Replace 'I Don't Know' or 'I Can't'
The implication of a question is that the student should have (some kind of answer). See that-what's happening there? The teacher's whispering, "I know the answer. You should, too. Answer my question and you'll have the answer." And? Whoopty do.

The value (of an answer) was granted by the teacher. It's teacher-currency. There is value in answers as knowledge, but there is lasting power in inquiry because it's a student-centered and self-sustaining process. In part, this is because returns the center of gravity back to the student, where it belongs. It short-circuits that dog-and-pony show of classroom teaching, and makes it something shaped like the student's mind.

I don't know, then, isn't just a starting point for finding an answer, or a ready-made template for some academic essential question. Rather, it returns the learning to the student, and restores the scale of understanding to a universe of knowledge.

Teacher: What form of government is most likely to encourage innovation?

Student: A democracy?

Teacher: Why?

Student: Because there is a lot of innovation in the United States, and we're a democracy?

Teacher: Is that innovation occurring because of or in lieu of that form of government?

Student: Because of.

Teacher: Why do you think that?

Student: I don't know.

Here, there's a shift. It's no longer a cat-and-mouse game. Now there's emotion involved. The gravity is with the student. The burden is in her lap, but since there is no clear path forward, the scale of things-the context-moves from beyond an interaction between a teacher and student to everything else but the interaction between the teacher and the student. The answer isn't here. It's out there. Out there is where I need to be.

The learning has left the classroom; now it can grow.
The Power Of I Don't Know; image attribution flickr user Rebecca Zuniga

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
by Terry Heick At TeachThought, nothing interests us more than students, as human beings. What they know, might know, should know, and do with what they know. A driving strategy that serves students-whether pursuing self-knowledge or academic content-is questioning. Questioning is useful as an assessment strategy, catalyst for inquiry, or "getting unstuck" tool.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Purdue University Online Writing Lab serves writers from around the world and the Purdue University Writing Lab helps writers on Purdue's campus.

# data[].attributes.headline
Useful Tips on Writing Essential Questions

# data[].attributes.subject
Useful Tips on Writing Essential Questions

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
1. Choose the Main Concept

The first step to writing essential questions is to write down the main concept that you are trying to teach your students. Although this may seem obvious at first, many teachers find that once they write down what they are trying to teach, they realize that they should really be focusing on something entirely different. For example, a teacher might write that he is trying to teach "the seven taxonomic ranks in the modern classification system," and then realizes that his main goal is not for students to memorize these ranks at all. Instead, his goal is for students to understand the reasons why scientists classify organisms and how they do it.

2. Turn It Into a Question

The next step in writing essential questions is to take the statement and convert it into an actual question. For example, you might change "the classification of organisms" to " Why do scientists classify organisms?", "How do scientists classify organisms?", or "What are the classifications of organisms?" In fact, you may find that one concept can be split into three essential questions.

3. Think Like Your Students

Think about what would interest your students the most about the questions that you write down. Which of them are the most thought provoking and which of them would seem most important within the context of your students' lives? The question should also require the students to really organize their knowledge in order to answer it. In this step, choose the question(s) that seem to best fit this criteria.

4. Refine the Content of the Question

Remember that an essential question should not have an obvious right answer and the answers to it should not be simple. Explained in a different way, an essential question cannot be answered in one sentence, but does not need a whole book to answer it either. Instead, an essential question should require students to use higher-level thinking skills or form their own opinions or solutions to problems. It should also target the main concept of the chapter or essay you are teaching about. In this step, try to tailor your question so that it addresses all of these concerns.

5. Refine the Wording of the Question

In order for an essential question to be effective, your students will need to be able to easily understand it and keep it in mind while they learn the information related to it. Students should never be able to misconstrue an essential question, and all of the students should understand exactly what it means. For these reasons, the wording of an essential question is incredibly important. After you adjust the wording slightly to make it as clear as possible, have several other people read it to make sure that they understand exactly what you are trying to convey.

The process of writing an essential question is often just as important as the question itself. Clarifying what you want your students to understand about the lesson can ensure that you will gear your lesson so that your students will actually grasp those important concepts.

References

http://www.kfalls.k12.or.us/kuhs/Seniors/Senior%20project/Writing%20Essential%20Questions.pdf

http://www.techforlearning.org/essquest.html#Characteristics%20for%20writing

http://www.greenville.k12.sc.us/league/esques.html

Writing Lessons and Mini Lessons

The mini lesson is an often overlooked tool that teachers can use to teach basic writing skills. This series of article discusses various mini lessons you can use in your classroom.

1. What Are the Components of a Mini Lesson?

2. Five Steps to Writing Essential Questions

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Useful Tips on Writing Essential Questions

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The first step to writing essential questions is to write down the main concept that you are trying to teach your students. Although this may seem obvious at first, many teachers find that once they write down what they are trying to teach, they realize that they should really be focusing on something entirely different.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A question or issue that seems irrelevant often turns out later to be pivotal. It only appeared irrelevant at the outset. Its lack of relevance was a matter of perception. In most cases, such questions do not even occur to leaders. They must be sought out. They do not arrive with a fanfare.

# data[].attributes.headline
10 Tips For Launching An Inquiry-Based Classroom | MindShift | KQED News

# data[].attributes.subject
10 Tips For Launching An Inquiry-Based Classroom | MindShift | KQED News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"At the end of it they may have consumed less content, but remember more of the sum total," Laufenberg said. "And they end up in a better place."
2. Don't tell students what they should know; create the structure for them to experience it on their own.
"Inquiry at its best happens when the teacher is doing very little other than creating the architecture for the experience to happen," Laufenberg said. "It's asking the first question, putting up the provocative primary document or playing the two minute video." After that, the room should be full of kid questions. And if a student gets truly stumped and asks for help from the teacher, her job is to ask another question that pushes the students' thinking forward or raises new questions for the student to investigate.

Laufenberg has worked with well-intentioned, hard working teachers all over the country to infuse more inquiry into their teaching. Many of them find this model destabilizing because for a long time they believed their job was to teach content. To make inquiry-based learning work, teachers have to instead become experts at listening to how a student is thinking and then ask the one question that will "un-stick" the students' thinking and set them off and running again.

"You know it's happening when there's very little telling of things, but rather leading of questions and experiences so the students discover those on their own," Laufenberg said.

[ted id=1034]
3. Use class time to make connections between pieces of information.
Especially with AP classes, students are motivated or else they wouldn't be there. So give them a list of questions, tell them what to study and let them do so outside of class. They can use the textbook, the Internet and many other sources to find that information more efficiently and effectively than a lecture.

"Inside of class, use that time to make connections between information," Laufenberg said. After all, what good are facts if they aren't connected to anything else? "Give them [students] compelling things to do that have them analyze and talk to each other, and grapple with the difficulty of what's going on in whatever it is you happen to be teaching. But stop using your minutes in class to just tell them things." Teachers have the tremendously important role of helping students make sense of the facts they've learned and see connections to other issues.
4. Many kids struggle with reading, so hook them with the non-written word.
When Laufenberg taught at Science Leadership Academy she had a student in her class who was an advanced analytical processor, a great critical thinker and a wonderful problem solver, but she struggled to read and write because of learning differences. Laufenberg wanted her to be able to engage with the class content at the high level of which she was capable, and not be limited by her second grade reading level. She developed the habit of introducing lessons with something visual so the student wouldn't be left out.

"I needed to do this because there was an acute situation I wanted to handle, but what it was doing was inviting all the kids to the table with a level playing field of comprehension, not putting the barrier in front of them to start with, which is the written word for comprehension," Laufenberg said. She would show students something interesting or puzzling, even using 90 second videos to grab their attention. This strategy got students wondering and gave them a little background so that even if they were doing the reading Laufenberg assigned, they came to it with their own questions.

"Your reluctant readers are more likely to make an attempt," Laufenberg said, because they are curious to find the answer to their questions. Laufenberg would often try to give students the baseline information they need to know in the quickest way possible. "We would background build, but it wouldn't be, 'I'm going to tell you a few things today,'" Laufenberg said.

If a complex idea can be imparted through a short video or other means, Laufenberg uses it so the majority of class time can be spent diving into deeper questions and analysis. Laufenberg always got at the background information through questions; she never just told students information.

"It isn't less reading; it's less reading of the least interesting information to yield the more in-depth reading and invested reading," Laufenberg said. She still requires students to read, but if they aren't reading for the background information then they can be engaging more complex and interesting texts.
5. Stop giving struggling kids the most boring version of the work to repeat over and over again.
"We do a really interesting thing in American education; when kids are struggling with something, we just give them the most boring version of it and more of it, over and over and over again," Laufenberg said. There's no way that tactic is going to get students excited about the subject they struggle to understand.

Math teachers commonly say they have to get through some basics in order to get to the interesting content. But if students aren't interested in knowing, they'll never get to the good stuff. "Getting kids to understand that math is not just computation, that math is this whole other thought process and way of thinking about the world, and really trying to understand the bigger picture of math," is the key Laufenberg said. Kids have to care. "Give them a puzzle to figure out to then lead them towards the math that they need to know," Laufenberg said. They need to figure it out on their own, or at least grapple with it to care.

She doesn't think it's that different from history. If the goal of teaching history is for kids to chronologically place events on a timeline, we've missed the full potential for the learning experience. If the purpose of math is only to compute, we've missed something.

And with reading, don't give reluctant readers boring passages to read. Let them read whatever they want. No one wants to read things that are boring to them.
6. Surprise students.
Laufenberg would often start class by putting a primary source document up on the screen with no context. Students would come in and immediately get to work trying to figure out what the document was and where it came from. She says it was a great window into their thinking and questioning skills.

"Sometimes you can use really little projects to get their minds spinning on all the ways of knowing, and then model those for each other," Laufenberg said. Not all the students will find the answer, but they'll be curious to know how others did. Laufenberg calls activities like this "micro bursts of inquiry."
7. The traditional model of imparting knowledge isn't working very well, so don't be afraid to try out inquiry.
"When people don't want to do it I always tell them to pick the unit you know always falls flat," Laufenberg said. "You're not going to lose; they're already not with you." It's a safe place to start because it can't get worse and maybe some learnings will come out of the experiment that can inform other lessons.
8. Find the "bend" in the outcomes and abandon the prescriptive path.
Laufenberg recommends finding "the bend" by paring down the content to the most essential pieces and focusing on them thematically. That will help open up as many paths as possible for students to arrive at the big ideas that kids need to learn. When teachers assign a "project" that follows the pacing guide, has a definable outcome and which results in 30 assignments that all look the same, it's not inquiry. SLA principal Chris Lehmann calls that "the recipe." In a true inquiry-based assignment students will travel different paths to and produce different products, but learn along the way.

"In a non-inquiry classroom the kids will all walk the same path because the teacher has decided where everybody is going and nothing that anybody says all day long will alter that," Laufenberg said.
9. Indulge interesting student questions even if it doesn't fit the pacing guide.
Laufenberg has seen classrooms where a student asks a fascinating question that the teacher brushes off because there's not enough time. Kids know when there's nothing they can do to influence the direction of the lesson, a distinctly disempowering experience.

"Who that child is isn't informing the path and that's the most devastating part," Laufenberg said. Listening to student questions and validating them by asking them of the whole group has the added value of building student confidence and highlighting the value of wondering.
10. Approach the practice of teaching with inquiry and use that meta-practice to improve.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
10 Tips For Launching An Inquiry-Based Classroom | KQED

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"At the end of it they may have consumed less content, but remember more of the sum total," Laufenberg said. "And they end up in a better place." 2. Don't tell students what they should know; create the structure for them to experience it on their own.

# data[].attributes.headline
5 Ways to Help Your Students Become Better Questioners | Edutopia

# data[].attributes.subject
5 Ways to Help Your Students Become Better Questioners | Edutopia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The humble question is an indispensable tool: the spade that helps us dig for truth, or the flashlight that illuminates surrounding darkness. Questioning helps us learn, explore the unknown, and adapt to change.

That makes it a most precious "app" today, in a world where everything is changing and so much is unknown. And yet, we don't seem to value questioning as much as we should. For the most part, in our workplaces as well as our classrooms, it is the answers we reward -- while the questions are barely tolerated.

To change that is easier said than done. Working within an answers-based education system, and in a culture where questioning may be seen as a sign of weakness, teachers must go out of their way to create conditions conducive to inquiry. Here are some suggestions (based on input from question-friendly teachers, schools, programs, and organizations) on how to encourage more questioning in the classroom and hopefully, beyond it.

How to Encourage Questioning

1. Make It Safe

Asking a question can be a scary step into the void. It's also an admission to the world (and more terrifyingly, to classmates) that one doesn't know the answer. So teachers must somehow "flip the script" by creating an environment where questioning becomes a strength; where it is welcomed and desired. The Right Question Institute, a nonprofit group that teaches inquiry skills in low-income schools, encourages teachers to run group exercises dedicated entirely to formulating questions (no answers allowed!) -- with clear rules and guidelines to ensure that students' questions aren't judged or edited, and that all questions are written down and respected. There are many variations on this type of exercise. The second-grade teacher Julie Grimm uses a "10 by 10" exercise, in which kids are encouraged to come up with 10 great questions about a topic during a 10-minute span. But the bottom line is, designate some kind of safe haven in the classroom where all students can freely exercise the "questioning muscle."

2. Make It "Cool"

This is a tough one. Among many kids, it's cool to already know -- or to not care. But what if we could help students understand that the people who ask questions happen to be some of the coolest people on the planet? As I discovered in the research for my book on inquiry, questioners thought of many of those whiz-bang gadgets we now love. They're the ones breaking new ground in music, movies, the arts. They're the explorers, the mavericks, the rebels, making the world a more interesting place -- and having a heck of a time themselves. How cool is that?

3. Make It Fun

Part of the appeal of "questions-only" exercises is that there's an element of play involved, as in: Can you turn that answer/statement into a question? Can you open your closed questions, and close your open ones? There are countless ways to inject a "game" element into questioning, but here's an example borrowed from the business world: Some companies use a practice called " the 5 whys," which involves formulating a series of "why" questions to try to get to the root of a problem. Kids were practically born asking "why" questions, so why not allow them to use that innate talent within a structured challenge? Or, show them how to use the " Why/What if/How " sequence of questioning as a fun way to tackle just about any problem. Whatever the approach, let kids tap into their imaginations and innate question-asking skills in ways that make inquiry an engaging part of a larger challenge.

4. Make It Rewarding

Obviously, we must praise and celebrate the questions that are asked -- and not only the on-target, penetrating ones, but also the more expansive, sometimes-offbeat ones (I found that seemingly "crazy questions" sometimes result in the biggest breakthroughs). Help create a path for students to get from a question to a meaningful result. A great question can be the basis of an ongoing project, a report, an original creation of some kind. The point is to show that if one is willing to spend time on a question -- to not just Google it but grapple with it, share it with others, and build on it -- that question can ultimately lead to something rewarding and worthwhile.

5. Make It Stick

If the long-term goal is to create lifelong questioners, then the challenge is to make questioning a habit -- a part of the way one thinks. RQI's Dan Rothstein says it's important to include a metacognitive stage in question-training exercises wherein kids can reflect on how they've used questioning and articulate what they've learned about it, so they can "pave a new neural pathway" for lifelong inquiry. As for the behavioral habits associated with good questioning, here are a few: Questioners train themselves to observe everyday surroundings with "vuja de" eyes that see the familiar in fresh ways; they're always on the lookout for assumptions (including their own) that should be questioned; and they're willing to ask questions that might be considered "naïve" by others.

So ask yourself this beautiful question: How might I encourage more questioning in my classroom? And how might I instill the habit of questioning in my students? After all, knowing the answers may help them in school, but knowing how to question will help them for life. I look forward to your thougths -- and questions! -- in the comments area.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
5 Ways to Help Your Students Become Better Questioners | Edutopia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The humble question is an indispensable tool: the spade that helps us dig for truth, or the flashlight that illuminates surrounding darkness. Questioning helps us learn, explore the unknown, and adapt to change. That makes it a most precious "app" today, in a world where everything is changing and so much is unknown.

# data[].attributes.headline
4 Phases of Inquiry-Based Learning: A Guide For Teachers

# data[].attributes.subject
4 Phases of Inquiry-Based Learning: A Guide For Teachers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
by Terry Heick

According to Indiana University Bloomington, Inquiry-based learning is an "instructional model that centers learning on a solving a particular problem or answering a central question. There are several different inquiry-based learning models, but most have several general elements in common:

Learning focuses around a meaningful, ill-structured problem that demands consideration of diverse perspectives

Academic content-learning occurs as a natural part of the process as students work towards finding solutions

Learners, working collaboratively, assume an active role in the learning process

Teachers provide learners with learning supports and rich multiple media sources of information to assist students in successfully finding solutions

Learners share and defend solutions publicly in some manner"

The process itself can be broken down into stages, or phases, that help teachers frame instruction. The model we've created can be used as a guide for teachers, as it includes teacher and student indicators at each stage, ideal "tones" of each phase, and even apps that can support that phase as well.

Inquiry-based learning is an approach that can easily accommodate project-based learning, challenge-based learning, place-based education, blended learning, and other trends in education.
4 Phases of Inquiry-Based Learning: A Guide For Teachers Big Idea: Dive into engaging, relevant, and credible media forms to identify a 'need' or opportunity for inquiry
The first phase of inquiry (often produced by strategies for promoting inquiry-based learning) is one characterized by interaction. This interaction can be:

Student-to-material. This material is ideally obtained through formal (i.e., research) and informal (e.g., reading, social and digital media, collaboration) means. It can be modeled or supplemented by teacher-provided materials

Student-to-peer. This interaction is chosen by teacher or student, informed by need for information and perspective

Student-to-expert (experts within relevant fields at accessible levels)

Student-to-media (digital, text, pure data, etc.)

The nature of inquiry is ideally both curiosity-based and fluid. Narrow criteria, restrictive rubrics, and other traditional artifacts of 'school work' can stifle inquiry at this point of the learning process. The teacher's role at this point in the learning process is focused on resources, modeling curiosity, and cognitive coaching.

Tone: Open-minded, curious, unburdened, playful

Student Indicators: actively skims a variety of media, follows curiosity, responds with awe, dwells with certain media depending on curiosity or perceived utility; seeks out peers for ideas and resources

Teacher Indicators: models curiosity, thinks-aloud when interacting with disparate media, asks probing questions, withholds evaluative statements, provides exemplars, monitors and encourages student thinking habits

Apps: FlipBoard, Pocket, Podkicker, Zotero

Appropriate Questions: What sources of information are available to me? What do others around me know? What's worth studying? What possibilities, problems, or situations tend to interest me? What types of experiences, perspectives, and data are available to me? When am I at my best?
Big Idea: Summarizing, paraphrasing, and categorizing learning with teacher or expert support.
This happens by analyzing data, identifying and clarifying misconceptions, and otherwise 'getting a feel' for the scale, nature, and possibility of selected topics of inquiry.

After skimming, reading, watching, and otherwise interacting with a variety of media, this stage of the inquiry process is centered around students clarifying both their own thinking, and the nature of 'things' around them: ideas for projects, scientific challenges, opportunities for revision, need for design thinking, a new scale to tackle persistent problems, etc.

Thinking patterns are both inward and reflective, and outward and communicated. In that way, students both reflect on their own knowledge, while beginning to identify possible pathways forward.

Tone: Slightly more focused, reflective, independent, cautious

Student Indicators: Paraphrases understanding in familiar language; resists looking for 'answers' and 'solutions'; distinguishes between fact and opinion; evaluates the credibility and relevance of sources; focused on possibility

Teacher Indicators: offers non-evaluative and frequent feedback; provides relevant graphic organizers and other ways to 'frame' student thinking; asks probing questions that focus on student thinking: what they know and why they think they know it;

Appropriate Questions: What's the big picture here? What are the pieces and how do they fit? What's accessible, and what's not? What's possible? Am I missing critical data, perspectives, or opportunities for collaboration that could further clarify my thinking? What do I seem to understand, and how do I know?
Apps: MindMeister, WordPress, Quora, reddit Big Idea: Asking questions to drive continued, self-directed inquiry
The questioning phase is a critical phase of the inquiry-based learning process, if for no other reason than misunderstandings, lack of organization, uneven confidence, or an inability to see the 'big picture' surface here more clearly than other phases.

Students and teachers alike must also be able to trust the nature and patterns of inquiry that are often recursive and iterative: They often move back and forth between phases, and new skills and understandings can be obtained in frustratingly small increments. Inquiry-based learning is more about the process, tone, and instincts of learning than other 'tidier' academic forms, which can require both students and teachers to adjust their measures of progress, quality, and success.

Tone: Creative, confident, interdependent

Student Indicators: Curious, precise with questions, self-monitoring, big-picture thinking, little-picture application

Teacher Indicators: models questioning, thinks-aloud in revising irrelevant or otherwise flawed questions; models use of concept-mapping tools to analyze thinking; hosts QFT sessions and Socratic seminars

Appropriate Questions: What's worth understanding? Where are my knowledge gaps? What is both within and beyond my reach? What have I done in the past that can help me in this situation moving forward?

Apps: Evernote, MindMeister, twitter, Quora, reddit
Big Idea: Designing an accessible, relevant, and curiosity-driven action or product to culminate and justify inquiry
At this final stage of the inquiry-based learning process, learners are focused on design.

Design of solutions to address problems within a manageable scale

Design of logical and curiosity-based applications of current understanding

Design of next steps to extend their own learning pathway

Tone: Creative, restrained, calculating

Appropriate Questions:What now? What audience makes sense for this research? Where can I do 'good work'? What would be 'cool'? What have others before me done?

Apps: Posts, Mextures, Inkist, Google Drive, DesignPad, Foldify

Student Indicators: Clarifies thinking, busy, self-directed, uncertain but efficacious, follows curiosity

Teacher Indicators: Creates 'conditions and means' for collaboration; i dentifies areas for revision, reflects back on entire process (i.e., "how we get to this point")
4 Student Questions For Post-Phase Reflection
After the inquiry-based learning process is 'finished' (for the purposes of classroom work, publishing, grading, etc.), it can be helpful for students to reflect in the inquiry-based learning process through questions such as:

What skills did I depend on?

What do I now understand more deeply, and how do I know?

If I had more time or resources, what else could I have done?

What is the role of inquiry in learning?
4 Phases of Inquiry-Based Learning: A Guide For Teachers; image attribution flickr user woodleywonderworks and usgahumphreys

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
4 Phases Of Inquiry-Based Learning: A Guide For Teachers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
by Terry Heick According to Indiana University Bloomington, Inquiry-based learning is an "instructional model that centers learning on a solving a particular problem or answering a central question.

# data[].attributes.headline
Designing Inquiry-Based Science Units As Collaborative Partners - Okemura.pdf

# data[].attributes.subject
Designing Inquiry-Based Science Units As Collaborative Partners - Okemura.pdf

# data[].attributes.headline
Writing Our Way Into Inquiry and Presearch - DML Central

# data[].attributes.subject
Writing Our Way Into Inquiry and Presearch - DML Central

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
As we continue our efforts to think about writing literacies as a focal point of our inquiry work in a high school library, my colleague Jennifer Lund and I continue to see the power of an old school technology: pen and paper.

We've targeted the presearch phase of research projects as a sweet spot for using writing literacies as a medium for critical thinking and making visible student ideas, questions, and patterns of understanding. In their "Pathways to Knowledge " model of information literacy, Pappas and Tepe define presearch as the stage that "...enables searchers to connect their information need and prior knowledge. They may participate in a brainstorming activity to create a web or a list of questions on what they know about their subject or what they want to know" (Harada and Tepe). Presearch can provide instructional opportunities to show learners "strategies to narrow their focus and develop specific questions or define [an] information need" (Callison and Baker 20). We have combined a variety of written conversation strategies adapted from the work of Harvey Daniels, Visible Thinking learning structures, and mindmapping activities to nurture student curiosity, spark questions, and help students connect existing knowledge to new information introduced through our presearch inquiry activities.

In our educational landscape that is informed by multiple state and local standardized tests and common assessments, curriculum maps, and large departments competing for limited time and space in the media center and computer labs, helping teachers open up student research learning experiences from ones that are limited and tightly predefined by the teacher to those that give students opportunities to select and develop a topic focus is a huge step forward in our efforts as collaborative instructional partners and designers. Earlier this semester, we tried a tandem of activities, Think, Puzzle, Explore and preserach search term strategy mapping, to see if we could use writing literacies as a more intentional part of the process work of research.
Think, Puzzle, Explore
In January, Jennifer Lund and I met with two of our 11th grade language arts teachers to plan their upcoming research unit on sustainability. We wanted to do something fun and interesting to introduce the range of topics to students who would engage them and not begin with them just browsing the resources on the project LibGuide. We initially considered using the write-around strategy, but with so many sections of classes and possibilities for topics/subtopics, we felt the prep work involved was a bit overwhelming for the time we had available to get the materials together.

We decided to use another strategy, though, that involved thinking and writing called Think, Puzzle, Explore, a routine for learning that "sets the stage for deeper inquiry." Since many teachers are utilizing strategies from Making Thinking Visible, we felt this would be the perfect learning structure to introduce 11th graders to sustainability topics. With Think, Puzzle, and Explore, students are asked to reflect and share:

1. What do you think you know about this topic?
2. What questions or puzzles do you have?
3. How can you explore this topic?
Think, Puzzle, Explore Prep Work
We decided to choose eight areas of sustainability and to find an article of interest for each that students could read and respond to individually and collectively as a group. After we searched and selected articles on eight different topics, we made sets of five for each table so that each student could have a copy to read and mark up or annotate. Our library science student helpers gathered multiple sheets of butcher paper and helped us attach the three "Think, Puzzle, Explore" labels Jennifer crafted for each sheet of paper. These labels Jennifer created served as a reminder prompt to nudge students in their responses and as a placeholder for each column where students would record their responses. We were not sure how quickly the sheets of paper would fill up with student work, so we had extra sheets of butcher paper and labels in case we needed them. Initially, we thought all six classes could compile their answers on one sheet, but we realized after two classes we definitely need to rotate the response sheets. During our one period off, 3rd, we finished the prep work for the butcher paper sheets to be used later in the day.

Think, Puzzle, Explore Implementation
We began by introducing the procedures for the activity and explaining the logistics and purpose of Think, Puzzle, Explore to the students. Our goal was for students to sample at least two tables/topics to, hopefully, fuel their interest and pique their curiosity. Once we finished the introductory procedures review, students had about two minutes to select a table; we limited each table to four students at most. We also reminded students to choose their tables by topics and not the safety zone of friends!

We gave students about five minutes to quietly read as much as they could of their articles (some were longer or more textually complex than others) and strongly encouraged them to mark up/annotate their articles to have some talking points for collaborative conversation. Some students also jotted notes in a notebook during this part of the activity and/or during the collective discussion that followed. Once the five minutes were up, we had students discuss their responses and then collectively compose their responses to "Think, Puzzle, and Explore." The discussion and collective composition took 5-8 minutes. We then repeated this process a second time and had students choose a different table and topic.

Once we had completed both rounds, each group got one of our "Steelcase Verb" dry erase boards, and each member contributed their takeaway reflection, reaction, or big question as the ticket out the door; each student put his/her initials by his/her reflection or question.
Curating Student Work, Reflections
As classes transitioned, Jennifer and I quickly tidied up tables and captured student work with a digital camera and our iPhones to curate and share with all classes and teachers. It was a day that was energizing (and a little exhausting) as the work and pace were pretty intense, but we were really pleased with student responses and participation. We got verbal feedback from several students about how much they enjoyed the activity and, for several, the process had given them some topics to think about for subsequent investigation that we're now starting this week.

In the spirit of crowdsourcing our thinking, we collected all of the "big takeaway" responses and linked to each album on the LibGuide (scroll toward the bottom of the middle column to view by period). We also had our library science students transcribe all of the responses from the butcher paper; I then captured all of them using my scanner app on my phone and uploading the PDFs of the scans to Google Drive, which made it easy to then send to SlideShare and download the PDFs to my PC for transfer to the LibGuide. We did consider providing laptops and shared Google Docs for students to record their thinking, but our experience with our students has been that the tactile aspect of composing and experiencing seeing each other's thinking on physical paper is powerful; in hindsight, we feel we made the right choice.

Not only did we build prior knowledge through this activity, but we accomplished our goal to engage students in collective thinking and build/play off each other's ideas. Think, Puzzle, and Explore also provided students a medium to learn a little about a topic and tease out some initial thoughts. Now that we have all of their work uploaded, students can visit it if they want to revisit any initial thinking from last week or use it as a brainstorming tool to further investigate one of those topics although they certainly can go in other directions. This activity was the bridge to our next phase of presearch, Presearch Search Term Strategy Mapping, an activity we adapted from our friend and fellow librarian Tasha Bergson-Michelson.
From Think Puzzle Explore to Mapping a Search for a Potential Topic
Like many of you classroom teachers and librarians, Jennifer and I frequently wonder: how can we provide students time and opportunity to dwell, wrestle, and grow as searchers who can develop effective strategies and techniques for finding information and using that information to narrow a topic? How do we help students learn techniques for cropping and focusing a topic area? While we have been advocates for pre-search for a long time, we have been more deliberate this academic year about trying to elevate this aspect of research and inquiry processes as well with our faculty.

In reflecting on our inquiry work with Sarah Rust last semester, I wondered if there might be a better way to get kids to think more intentionally about their search terms and to build some prior knowledge for an initial round of topic focus prior to the work with modified KWLs and annotating I've done during pre-search and then mindmapping with both Sarah and other projects I did with teachers while at Creekview High in the past. After revisiting the work of Tasha Bergson-Michelson and a great post from librarian Carolyn Foote, I decided to adapt Tasha's search strategy mapping technique for our sustainability research unit with our 11 th AP language arts teachers. After running my ideas by Jennifer and doing a little brainstorming together, we decided we would adapt Tasha's technique to help students map their first round of pre-search strategies to help them find a path to a more focused topic area of sustainability.

I actually went through the process and worked for about two and a half hours off and on doing search and creating a model I could use as a think aloud with students this week on the first day of formal instruction in the library. I began with the topic of urban garden (food sustainability) and wound my way to a more focused topic of food justice. My first version I did in a freehand fashion, but I replicated it using Mindmeister to show students what their maps might look like if they used a free online mindmapping tool. I felt it was important to draft models related to their area of study and that would hopefully be accessible to our students. Here are my drafts:

On the first day of presearch, a Monday, I modeled the process for students each period while sprinkling in some search strategies and tips for specific databases; this part of the lesson took about 10-12 minutes. I showed them how I began by skimming and scanning 3-4 articles from sources like databases, search engines, and TED videos. For each place I searched, I noted key vocabulary, terms, and concepts that seemed important and/or new to me. I showed them how I then incorporated new terms into my running list of search terms/phrases I was trying out and how that helped me discover new articles. I shared how my discovery process kept building on each search effort and what I was getting from the reading and how that led me from a topic of urban gardening to a more focused topic of food justice.

We encouraged students to skim and scan at least three articles from three sources to find vocabulary terms, and concepts that could help them grow their search terms; just as I had done in the think aloud modeling, I told them to keep a running list of search terms/phrases they were trying. Because we did not want to overstructure the mapping process, we told students not to worry about citation or identifying specific articles or web resources although they certainly could capture permalinks/bookmarks/URLs for resources that seemed notable. We provided students plain and colored paper (they love choices) as well as Sharpies for those who wanted them. We made sure students also had access to digital and hard copies of my drafts so they had a tangible model to see once we finished the lesson. While we were not able to secure the same timeline Tasha uses with this approach, students did have a day and a half to work on the maps in the library (the submission deadline established by the teachers was the end of class on Tuesday) although some students might have benefited from an additional half or full day to work on their search and maps. We, along with the classroom teachers, told students to use Monday evening to try making progress on their maps and search as well. While students had the choice of crafting their presearch search term maps by hand or with a tech tool, an overwhelming majority chose to create their maps by hand; this is a choice we have seen across other classes in the last few weeks since this initial effort.
I devised a "lightning reflection" to help students share a little of their process and to help us better understand what we might be seeing in their pre-search strategy maps.

Jennifer and I targeted the students in three specific class sections to complete this form and then attach it to the mapping work they had completed at the end of class yesterday. We then struggled to think about an effective yet fast way to give them some helpful feedback today since we had anticipated returning the maps either today or Thursday. After much trial and error (and some additional revising to add some comment checkboxes related to the search term notes - we noticed after assessing one set of student work, some students were noting more facts than terms and vocabulary, and it was time consuming to write the comment repeatedly), so we crafted this form thinking the checklist and "green, yellow, red" status indicators would help students think about next steps in class this week.
After looking at their green reflection sheets and maps, I spent roughly a day completing the feedback form and providing written comments as needed. Jen assisted me in this process, and we enjoyed seeing patterns of their thinking as well as gaps as looking at student work helps us better understand what students know at this point and where they may need additional help or instruction.

After returning the student assessment feedback forms, we took time to discuss with the classes what they were doing well and strategies for strengthening their presearch work with the maps. We also shared exemplar maps from their peers for further inspiration; below is a sampler of some of the maps our students created.
Reflections
We continue to fine-tune our efforts, but overall we are very pleased with the quality of work and thinking we saw from our students in both activities. We're excited that this strategy worked the way we hoped it would and impressed by how the students used the strategy to move from Point A to B in a thoughtful and more deliberate yet organic way with their search strategies and terms/phrases. It was also exciting to "feel" the student interest in their topics and their discovery process as some of them made some really interesting moves from broad topics to more focused subtopics. We invite you to watch and listen to the feedback some of our students shared with us as they eloquently explain how both activities helped them find, refine, and engage with a topic of authentic value to them.

In conclusion, we continue to see something very powerful about students using writing processes to engage in metacognition and inquiry. While so much of search itself is now done through digital means, the act of "unplugged" writing technologies to not only slow down student thinking but to also help them wrestle with the challenges inherent in information seeking tasks in presearch. Jennifer and I are excited for opportunities like these to incorporate activities that help students question, wonder, and explore as part of the topic selection process. As we continue to work with our teachers and students, we hope to better develop our formative assessments to identify specific learning outcomes and processes of the presearch stage of inquiry and research. We look forward to seeing how we can continue to integrate writing literacies into all stages of inquiry, particularly as we look more closely at ways of information inquiry (Callison and Baker 18).
Works Cited
Callison, Daniel, and Katie Baker. "Elements of Information Inquiry, Evolution of Models, & Measured Reflection." Knowledge Quest 43.2 (2014): 18-24. Academic Search Complete. Web. 7 Mar. 2015.

Harada, Violet, and Ann Tepe. "Pathways to Knowledge [Trademark]." Teacher Librarian 26.2 (1998): 9. MasterFILE Elite. Web. 7 Mar. 2015.

All images by Buffy J. Hamilton

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Writing Our Way Into Inquiry and Presearch - Connected Learning Alliance

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As we continue our efforts to think about writing literacies as a focal point of our inquiry work in a high school library, my colleague Jennifer Lund and I continue to see the power of an old school technology: pen and paper.

# data[].attributes.headline
Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions article

# data[].attributes.subject
Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions article

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Volume 27, Number 5
September/October 2011

One small change can yield big results

Students in Hayley Dupuy's sixth-grade science class at the Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School in Palo Alto, Calif., are beginning a unit on plate tectonics. In small groups, they are producing their own questions, quickly, one after another: What are plate tectonics? How fast do plates move? Why do plates move? Do plates affect temperature? What animals can sense the plates moving? They raise questions "that we never would have thought of if we started to answer the first question we asked," says one of the students. "And just when you think you already know the question you want to focus on, you realize: 'Oh, wow, here's this other question that is so much better, and that's really what you need to think about.'"

Far from Palo Alto, in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, Mass., Sharif Muhammad's students at the Boston Day and Evening Academy (BDEA) have a strikingly similar experience. Many of them had transferred to BDEA for various reasons from other schools and had not always experienced much success as students. But working individually, they find that formulating their own questions engages them in a new way. One of the students observes: "When you ask the question, you feel like it's your job to get the answer, and you want to figure it out."

These two students-one in Palo Alto, the other in Roxbury-are discovering something that may seem obvious: When students know how to ask their own questions, they take greater ownership of their learning, deepen comprehension, and make new connections and discoveries on their own. However, this skill is rarely, if ever, deliberately taught to students from kindergarten through high school. Typically, questions are seen as the province of teachers, who spend years figuring out how to craft questions and fine-tune them to stimulate students' curiosity or engage them more effectively. We have found that teaching students to ask their own questions can accomplish these same goals while teaching a critical lifelong skill.

The Question Formulation Technique
Dupuy, Muhammad, and many other teachers are using a step-by-step process that we and our colleagues at the Right Question Institute have developed called the Question Formulation Technique (QFT). This technique helps students learn how to produce their own questions, improve them, and strategize on how to use them (see sidebar "Question Formulation Technique").

The origins of the QFT can be traced back 20 years to a dropout prevention program for the city of Lawrence, Mass., that was funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. As we worked together to increase parent involvement in education, we heard parents state the same problem over and over again: "We're not going to the schools because we don't even know what to ask." Eventually, this problem led us to create a simple but powerful process that has been used effectively in a wide range of fields across the country and beyond. In health care, for example, research funded by the National Institutes of Health has shown that the QFT produces dramatic increases in levels of patient activation and improved patient-provider communication. In the classroom, teachers have seen how the same process manages to develop students' divergent (brainstorming), convergent (categorizing and prioritizing), and metacognitive (reflective) thinking abilities in a very short period of time.

Teachers can use the QFT at different points: to introduce students to a new unit, to assess students' knowledge to see what they need to understand better, and even to conclude a unit to see how students can, with new knowledge, set a fresh learning agenda for themselves. The technique can be used for all ages.

Students have used the QFT to develop science experiments, create their own research projects, begin research on a teacher-assigned topic, prepare to write an essay, analyze a word problem, think more deeply about a challenging reading assignment, prepare an interview, or simply get themselves "unstuck."

The QFT has six key steps:

Step 1: Teachers Design a Question Focus. The Question Focus, or QFocus, is a prompt that can be presented in the form of a statement or a visual or aural aid to focus and attract student attention and quickly stimulate the formation of questions. The QFocus is different from many traditional prompts because it is not a teacher's question. It serves, instead, as the focus for student questions so students can, on their own, identify and explore a wide range of themes and ideas. For example, after studying the causes of the 1804 Haitian revolution, one teacher presented this QFocus: "Once we were slaves. Now we are free." The students began asking questions about what changed and what stayed the same after the revolution.

Step 2: Students Produce Questions. Students use a set of rules that provide a clear protocol for producing questions without assistance from the teacher. The four rules are: ask as many questions as you can; do not stop to discuss, judge, or answer any of the questions; write down every question exactly as it was stated; and change any statements into questions. Before students start generating their questions, the teacher introduces the rules and asks the students to think about and discuss possible challenges in following them. Once the students get to work, the rules provide a firm structure for an open-ended thinking process. Students are able to generate questions and think more broadly than they would have if they had not been guided by the rules.

Step 3: Students Improve Their Questions. Students then improve their questions by analyzing the differences between open- and closed-ended questions and by practicing changing one type to the other. The teacher begins this step by introducing definitions of closed- and open-ended questions. The students use the definitions to categorize the list of questions they have just produced into one of the two categories. Then, the teacher leads them through a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of both kinds of questions. To conclude this step, the teacher asks the students to change at least one open-ended question into a closed-ended one, and vice versa, which leads students to think about how the phrasing of a question can affect the depth, quality, and value of the information they will obtain.

Step 4: Students Prioritize Their Questions. The teacher, with the lesson plan in mind, offers criteria or guidelines for the selection of priority questions. In an introduction to a unit, the instruction may be, "Choose the three questions you most want to explore further." When designing a science experiment, it may be, "Choose three testable questions." An essay related to a work of fiction may require that students select "three questions related to the key themes we've identified in this piece." During this phase, students move from thinking divergently to thinking convergently, zero in on the locus of their inquiry, and plan concrete action steps for getting information they need to complete the lesson or task.

Step 5: Students and Teachers Decide on Next Steps. At this stage, students and teachers work together to decide how to use the questions. One teacher, for example, presented all the groups' priority questions to the entire class the next day during a "Do Now" exercise and asked them to rank their top three questions. Eventually, the class and the teacher agreed on this question for their Socratic Seminar discussion: "How do poverty and injustice lead to violence in A Tale of Two Cities?"

Step 6: Students Reflect on What They Have Learned. The teacher reviews the steps and provides students with an opportunity to review what they have learned by producing, improving, and prioritizing their questions. Making the QFT completely transparent helps students see what they have done and how it contributed to their thinking and learning. They can internalize the process and then apply it in many other settings.

When teachers deploy the QFT in their classes, they notice three important changes in classroom culture and practices. Teachers tell us that using the QFT consistently increases participation in group and peer learning processes, improves classroom management, and enhances their efforts to address inequities in education. As teachers see this happen again and again, they realize that their traditional practice of welcoming questions is not the same as deliberately teaching the skill of question formulation. Or, as one teacher put it: "I would often ask my students, 'Do you have any questions,' but, of course, I didn't get much back from them." In his seven years of teaching, Muhammad also encouraged his Roxbury students to ask questions but had seen just how difficult that could be for them. After using the six-step process outlined above, he was struck by "how the students went farther, deeper, and asked questions more quickly than ever before."

One Significant Change
For teachers, using the QFT requires one small but significant shift in practice: Students will be asking all the questions. A teacher's role is simply to facilitate that process. This is a significant change for students as well. It may take a minimum of 45 minutes for students to go through all the steps the first time it is introduced in a classroom; but as they gain experience using the QFT, teachers find that the students can run through the process very quickly, in 10 to 15 minutes, even when working in groups.

The QFT provides a deliberate way to help students cultivate a skill that is fundamentally important for all learning. Teaching this skill in every classroom can help successful students to go deeper in their thinking and encourage struggling students to develop a new thirst for learning. Their questions will have much to teach us.

Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana, codirectors of the Right Question Institute, are the authors of the forthcoming book Make Just One Change: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions to be published in September 2011 by Harvard Education Press.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Volume 27, Number 5 September/October 2011 One small change can yield big results Students in Hayley Dupuy's sixth-grade science class at the Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School in Palo Alto, Calif., are beginning a unit on plate tectonics. In small groups, they are producing their own questions, quickly, one after another: What are plate tectonics?

# data[].attributes.headline
Informational Text Lesson Plans 2nd Grade: Reading For Inquiry

# data[].attributes.subject
Informational Text Lesson Plans 2nd Grade: Reading For Inquiry

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
ELA.RI.2.1

Common core State Standards

ELA: English Language Arts

RI: Reading Standards for Informational Text K-\x80\x935

2: 2nd Grade

1:
Ask and answer such questions as who, what,
where, when, why, and how to demonstrate
understanding of key details in a text.

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

|

ELA.RI.2.5

Common core State Standards

ELA: English Language Arts

RI: Reading Standards for Informational Text K-\x80\x935

2: 2nd Grade

5:
Know and use various text features (e.g.,
captions, bold print, subheadings, glossaries,
indexes, electronic menus, icons) to locate key
facts or information in a text efficiently.

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

|

ELA.SL.2.1a

Common core State Standards

ELA: English Language Arts

SL: Speaking and Listening Standards K-\x80\x935

2: 2nd Grade

1a:
Participate in collaborative conversations with
diverse partners about grade 2 topics and texts
with peers and adults in small and larger groups.

a. Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions (e.g.,
gaining the floor in respectful ways, listening to
others with care, speaking one at a time about
the topics and texts under discussion).

b. Build on others'\x80\x99 talk in conversations by linking
their comments to the remarks of others.

c. Ask for clarification and further explanation
as needed about the topics and texts under
discussion.

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

PLEASE CREATE A NEW ACCOUNT OR LOG IN TO ACCESS THIS CONTENT

Enjoy your first video for free. Subscribe for unlimited access.

Have questions about subscribing? Click Here to learn more.

PLEASE CREATE A NEW ACCOUNT OR LOG IN TO ACCESS THIS CONTENT

Enjoy your first video for free. Subscribe for unlimited access.

Have questions about subscribing? Click Here to learn more.

Discussion and Supporting Materials

Thought starters

1. How does Ms. Gavin help her students own the learning goal of the lesson?

2. What strategies does Ms. Gavin use to scaffold the learning?

3. How does this lesson build students' academic language?

School Details

William Paca Elementary School
200 North Lakewood Avenue
Baltimore MD 21224

Data Provided By:

Teachers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Informational Texts: Reading for Inquiry

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Students in Nicole Gavin's second grade class ask and answer questions about key details in informational texts. First, Nicole and her students take time to discuss the lesson's objective. Next, Nicole models how to ask questions of a text. Then, students move to their cooperative groups where they read texts and write questions on sticky notes.

# data[].attributes.headline
Guided Inquiry: School Libraries in the 21st Century

# data[].attributes.subject
Guided Inquiry: School Libraries in the 21st Century

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
There should be surprise, delight or even discomfort as one explores. True inquiry involves discovery. The task at hand should awaken curiosity and take the student on an adventure. Mere topical research requires little more than gathering and is often sleep inducing.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
From Now On is a leading provider of free information to guide school thinking about new technologies.

# data[].attributes.headline
Nudging Toward Inquiry (AASL 2009) on Vimeo

# data[].attributes.subject
Nudging Toward Inquiry (AASL 2009) on Vimeo

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Provides strategies for school librarians to gently move our K-12 instructional design closer to the inquiry approach outlined in the AASL Standards for the 21st-Century Learner. (Presentation from AASL 2009)