Questioning and Investigating by Robyn Hartley https://padlet.com/r_hartley/o30ht0lq4xzd en-us 2019-05-15 10:27:33 UTC 2025-12-14 18:24:35 UTC hello@padlet.com See - Think - Wonder Context r_hartley https://padlet.com/r_hartley/o30ht0lq4xzd/wish/361577057 I did a SEE THINK WONDER routine with 21 Grade 2 children (aged 8) to introduce our new Unit of Inquiry. This unit is one of our IB PYP Transdisciplinary themes, "Where We Are in Place and Time". The central idea is: Understanding where we live can promote international mindedness.
It is a unit with social studies outcomes:
1. Identify how and why the lives of people have changed over time while others have remained the same.
2. Compare objects from the past and present.
3. Sequence events in order using a range of terms related to time.
4. Identify and describe aspects of their community that have changed and remained the same over time.
The key concepts of the unit are change, connection and responsibility. 
]]> 2019-05-20 01:40:52 UTC https://padlet.com/r_hartley/o30ht0lq4xzd/wish/361577057 See - Think - Wonder Challenges r_hartley https://padlet.com/r_hartley/o30ht0lq4xzd/wish/361577175 The challenge was not only to get the students to think more deeply about how the past is different from the present but how the past affects the present. I had hoped that this routine and the choice of artefact (a ‘before and ‘after’ photo of Singapore) would help them to imagine what life used to be like in Singapore. I anticipated that children would make connections to their own personal and family's histories or home country. With grade 2 children it can still be difficult for them to put into words their thoughts and feelings and record them in written form. To scaffold the process I used the THINK PAIR SHARE strategy before having the children write their ideas individually.]]> 2019-05-20 01:41:50 UTC https://padlet.com/r_hartley/o30ht0lq4xzd/wish/361577175 See - Think - Wonder Teacher Reflections r_hartley https://padlet.com/r_hartley/o30ht0lq4xzd/wish/361577298 Firstly I told the children that to be successful in learning we need to develop our thinking skills and that I am going to use a Visible Thinking routine with them so I can see their thinking. I then projected the past and present images of Singapore on the interactive whiteboard and had the children sit quietly for two minutes while I asked them to focus on observing and noticing details in the photographs. I asked them to use their other senses to think what they might hear, smell and feel. This went well and I was surprised how focused the children were on the two photographs.

Secondly, I asked them to focus on the SEE part and share their ideas (think/pair/share) with a random partner. I choose a couple of children at random to articulate again what their partner had said. I repeated this with THINK and WONDER part as well. By the time we had gone through that, it was about 20 minutes plus and the children were getting a little impatient. I was conflicted about how much scaffolding to give the children and am a huge fan of THINK PAIR SHARE for this age group and because I have almost a third EAL learners. 

For the last part, I asked the children to individually write their responses and gave them a time scale of 15 minutes.  In the end, I asked the children what new ideas they have about the subject. After recess, they wrote any ideas onto a sticky note. For me, this was really important as it moved the thinking on. From making observations like, “I see people sitting and looking at a man” , “I see a guy singing” and “I think the people in picture A are poor”, to “cameras have changed a lot since the 1950s, they are colour now”, “the people looked poorer” and “the building is a lot nicer and brighter”, “Singapore is cleaner and has got a lot more things”. 
The children independently came up with the idea that Singapore has changed and the world has changed since the 1950s. The ideas they came up with included the relatively difficult concept of quality of life. My next step an inquiry teacher is thinking about how to explore that more.
]]> 2019-05-20 01:42:51 UTC https://padlet.com/r_hartley/o30ht0lq4xzd/wish/361577298 Think - Puzzle - Explore Context r_hartley https://padlet.com/r_hartley/o30ht0lq4xzd/wish/361577558 Although we were halfway through the unit of inquiry, Where We are in Place and Time, and the THINK PUZZLE EXPLORE is recommended for the start of a unit, I wanted to use the routine to help the children prepare for a school visit to the National Museum of Singapore. I felt the children should practise the routine in the classroom with one artefact before they visit the museum. At the museum, I planned to ask them to focus on two or three other artefacts and have the THINK PUZZLE EXPLORE routine at the forefront of their mind when they do so. At this age, it is useful to encourage the children to really focus in on one or two artefacts and emphasise the depth of thinking. We used a photograph of a rickshaw from the colonial days in Singapore. They will then see the object for real in the museum. The students worked in groups to document their thinking on a template after a THINK PAIR SHARE routine. ]]> 2019-05-20 01:44:51 UTC https://padlet.com/r_hartley/o30ht0lq4xzd/wish/361577558 Think - Puzzle - Explore Challenges and Teacher Reflections r_hartley https://padlet.com/r_hartley/o30ht0lq4xzd/wish/361577700 In setting up, this was quite similar to the SEE THINK WONDER routine, and the familiarity meant they were able to get on with things more easily.  I felt that children did respond with a lot more ideas, especially with the prompt, "what do you THINK you know?" I overheard children clarifying that phrase specifically. There seemed to be less superficial, irrelevant details. Most of the responses seemed of quite a high quality. Examples of some deeper thinking included:

“Why don't we use rickshaws or tuk-tuks nowadays? Why do some countries still use them? I think it is a taxi for rich people. I think Poor people pull it.”

This indicates to me that the next steps for discussion could be about levels of wealth and technology in different countries as compared with Singapore. We could also link it to our previous unit of Inquiry on human rights, and whether it is fair to have ‘poor' people pull 'rich' people. One challenge was running out of time for the explore section. After generating questions we thought of all the different ways we can do research. The children are quite used to coming up with a list such as; search on the internet, ask an expert, read a book, watch a movie, visit a museum. However, it seems that if we use the explore section of the routine in this way, every ‘EXPLORE’ section will yield the same answers. After the routine was completed I spent more time going through the children’s responses and put a summary of the responses on the wall and reviewed it with the students the next day. This ensured I was clearer about the main thinking which came out of the process. Overall I felt it was productive, the children were engaged and quick and easy to plan and resource
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