Open Inquiry – A Beginners Guide

Charlene Villa

Topic: ID

References

Elkins-Tanton, L. (2020, September 10). Open Inquiry: A Guide to Getting Started. Beagle Learning. https://www.beaglelearning.com/blog/inquiry/cycle/

Summary: This blog post was written as a guide for teachers/educators who are new to the open inquiry teaching/learning process. It provides a step-by-step guide on the process as well as examples for each of the steps. There is also an accompanying video that reviews the open inquiry process as well.

Evaluation/Opinion: I found this blog post very helpful as a teacher who is first learning about creating open inquiry lessons. It is very straight to the point and is a no-nonsense/fluff post. What I found most helpful about this post is the step-by-step guide that also included examples. It gave me a clear understanding of what open inquiry was and how it was different from other kinds of inquiry lessons. The post also included other links and resources that were valuable to my learning. I included a graphic that helped me visualize the process. The post also linked to other resources they had on their blog that were helpful. I would recommend this as a great starting point for any educator who is new to the open-inquiry learning process.

What the Heck Is Inquiry-Based Learning?

Smith, Elyce

Inquiry

Wolpert-Gawaon, H. (2016, August 11). What the Heck is Inquiry-Based Learning. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/what-heck-inquiry-based-learning-heather-wolpert-gawron

Summary:

The author gives a brief introduction to the idea of using inquiry in lesson design and points out the importance of modeling curiousity to students as a part of the process. The author then outlines the four steps of an inquiry unit: 1) Students dvelop questions they are hungry to answer, 2) Research the topic using the time in class, 3) Have students present what they learned, and 4) Ask students to reflect on what worked about the process and what didn’t. Again the author points out that the teacher starting with their own curiosity is the most important first step for inquiry-based learning to be effective.

Evaluation:

Inquiry is not something new for many teachers, but many teachers have tried to infuse it into their classroms with no success. This article helps make clear why that may be. Many teachers have bemoaned the lack of engagement from their students, when they themselves are disengaged from the learning process. We cannot expect more from our students that we expect from ourselves. Step one in engaging our students in inquiry is modeling for them real curiosity and inquiry from us. Another important aspect of true inquiry is the presentation step, which many teachers overlook. As authentic learners, we all know what if feels like to be so excited about something new that we’ve learned we can’t help but share it with someone we know. Unfortunately, we deny our students this step all the time. We want their inquiry to take place in a vaccuum, but that is not how it works. In order for a classroom to be a true space of inquiry, our students need to be able to share what they have learned.

Campfires, Caves and Watering Holes

Name: Livingston, Midge

Topic: Inquiry and Design Thinking

Citation: Davis, A., & Kappler-Hewitt, K. (n.d.). Learning & Leading Through Technology, June/July
2013, 26. http://www.learningandleading-Digital.com; Learning and Leading with Technology.

https://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learningandleading/20130607?pg=26#pg26

Overview: This article discusses the importance of spaces created for specific purposes in the Library Learning Commons. These spaces allow for opportunities to share, create, explore and innovate.

Evaluation: When thinking about how library space should be used, this article from Australia is an excellent reference for the 21st century. These ideas can be applied to Understanding by Design, the LIIITES Model, Inquiry and Design Based Learning, Makerspace concepts, the use of stations as well as many more. It is a beneficial read for the newly hired or when designing a new library.

The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread

L. Kelly Reed

ID

O’Connor, C. & Weatherall, J. O. (2019). The misinformation age: How false beliefs spread. Yale University Press. Retrieved March 2, 2021, from http://ezproxy1.lasierra.edu:2077/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzE5NDgwNTZfX0FO0?sid=30b28429-5f68-4ce7-9065-ffa857726b79@pdc-v-sessmgr02&vid=0&format=EK&rid=1

Summary

This book was fascinating to me, exploring in a very objective, scientific way how and why “fake news” actually spreads throughout the populace, becoming acceptable to and accepted by not just the public but scientists and media reporters, those who we often think “should know better.” Even more impressive is that this information is presented in a rather nonpartisan manner. The explanations and methodologies that are explained make sense and should be politically inoffensive to pretty much all readers, no matter which side of the American political aisle they might tend to lean. Some of the more specific examples, stories of fake news spreading in the past, are likely to trigger some readers with particularly extremist views, but that sort of reader is never going to be swayed by anything with even the faint odor of objective logic to it, so the authors’ choices of anecdotes doesn’t bother me in the least, and they are highly instructive.

The logical throughline of this text is the establishment and gradual complexification of a logical system of communication and influence. This system begins with only scientists doing scientific research and influencing each other with the results of their honest pursuits of truth. In such a simplified system, the results would naturally tend toward all participants gradually proving and accepting the best, most logical and objective results as experimentation over time proves what the best decisions are on any given scientific inquiry. However, the world is no longer this simple. At level two, propagandists (and/or industries) enter the system with their agendas and influence certain scientists, with the intent of supporting one bias or another, rather than seeking actual objective and scientific fact. As if that’s not complex enough, at level three, reporters also enter this system, with their own flaws and biases, and even those with the purest intentions can become vectors for disinformation, depending on how much they are influenced by industrial propaganda and how much influence they themselves exert on ongoing scientific studies.

Evaluation

I absolutely and strongly recommend this book, especially to librarians and even more especially to academic librarians who will be in a position to advise many university students (as well as university professors, frankly). The ability to detect and attempt to mitigate the effects of fake news in our modern society is a skill that is becoming more and more necessary by the year, perhaps by the month. All university students and faculty should be especially aware of the points being made in this text, perhaps especially communications students who are planning to go on and soon become journalists, who will have to be even more rigorous in their dealings with propaganda and with the inevitable political and industrial influences in the modern world. Everyone could stand to be better informed, and librarians should be on the front lines of the battle against ignorance.

How To Ease Students Into Independent Inquiry Projects

SUMMARY: The article starts with a heart-warming story of very shy student who through an inquiry-based project shares his difficulties with dyslexia as a child and ultimately wows the class with his honest and clear sense of self and mastery of his artistic expression. The experience was so moving that the teacher felt that he should provide more opportunities for his class to engage in inquiry projects. In doing so he realized the need to ease students into the autonomy that students have when doing free inquiry projects. The author then describes how to work from highly structured inquiry projects to free inquiry projects by by methodically removing the scaffolds and increasing student agency over learning.

TAKEAWAYS: This is a great article to read if you are just starting or wanting to implement inquiry based instruction into your classroom. The author is a veteran a guiding Student Inquiry. In fact he has written the book on the topic (well “a” book, titled “Inquiry Mindset”). This article will help you to smoothly introduce student inquiry into your classroom. I love the graphic below because the metaphor is so fitting. There is a sea of information out there. Students will have considerably greater success if we first teach them how to swim before inviting them to plunge into the deep.

Why Can’t I Just Google?

Feltman, Michaela

(ID)

Why can’t I just Google?. (2009, September 16). Retrieved October 03, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=192&v=hqjJyqfceLw

In a light-hearted way, this video is about two students that discuss why just Googleing information for an academic paper is not the best practice. This video was included on a website about information literacy.

I thought that this video would be a great teaching tool for perhaps a college-prep or AP English course to teach their students about not relying on Google for all of their sources. It also reminded me of the self-taught information literacy when writing my undergraduate thesis, I wish that I had watched this video beforehand to give me some ideas.

Is It Project-Based Learning, Maker Education, or Just Projects?

Jess Peterson

ID

Gerstein, J. (2013, October 22). Is It Project-Based Learning, Maker Education or Just Projects? Retrieved from https://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2013/10/22/is-it-project-based-learning-maker-education-or-just-projects/

This article examines and explains the differences between PBL, Maker Ed, and just throwing in projects. The author makes the claim that most often, even though educators are attempting to tout their activities as PBL or otherwise, mostly, projects are really just an activity that follows direct instruction, and don’t include any form of inquiry whatsoever. She goes on to outline several conditions that must be in place in order for PBL to truly exist, and if all, or at least most conditions aren’t met, then you simply have a project, and inquiry is missing.

I liked this article because she was particularly blunt as well as clear about what makes something qualify as PBL versus what doesn’t. She carefully examines the conditions she claims are essential for PBL to occur, and thoroughly explains how educators can meet these criteria. I also really liked that she included several resources throughout, in case anyone needed or wanted further reading about the various subtopics she brings up.

Inviting the User – Making the Library More Like a Bookstore

Solomon, Samantha

ID

Cornwall, G. (2018). How Genrefication Makes School Libraries More Like Bookstores. [online] KQED. Available at: https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/51336/how-genrefication-makes-school-libraries-more-like-bookstores. [Accessed 2 Oct. 2018].

This article describes genrefication and includes interviews with librarians who have a range of experience around it. The article includes several before and after stories and includes arguments on both sides of the debate from real librarians in the field.

I was drawn to this article because my library is genrefied and I feel very strongly about how that serves my students. When I have kids who come in and say “Do you have any horror books?” It is SUPER easy to show them where that section is and then just let them browse. In talking with other librarians about their feelings around genrefication, it seems that schools with more developed cultures around reading feel they don’t need it as much as schools with more nascent reading cultures.

Toward a socio-contextual understanding of transliteracy

Isbister, Kathy

Inquiry

Hovious, A. (2018). Toward a socio-contextual understanding of transliteracy. Reference Services Review, 46(2), 178-188. Retrieved from https://www-emeraldinsight-com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1108/RSR-02-2018-0016

Summary: This article reviews the works of many researchers to arrive at a current definition of transliteracy. There is discussion on the different ways literacy can be defined, early definitions of transliteracy where it is used to describe the convergence of multiple modes of presenting information, discussion of how this idea intersects with information literacy, and the socio-contextual perspective of transliteracy. In the conclusion, the author states, “Transliteracy then becomes a literacy of literacies, and transliterate individuals transform their literacy practices to successfully participate in the information activity systems to which they belong.”

Evaluation: I sought this article out to help me define transliteracy, and found this very thorough description of how the term can be used across multiple disciplines. For my own purposes, it is helpful to view the concept as one that encompasses using multiple modes both to discover more about an area of interest, and to share that discovery.

 

10-Minute Teacher Podcast: 5 Ideas to Experience Inquiry in Your Classroom

Isbister, Kathy

Inquiry

Davis, V. (Producer & Host). (2018, September 14). 10-Minute Teacher http://podcast (Episode 360: 5 ideas to experience inquiry in your classroom). Retrieved from http://www.coolcatteacher.com/e360/

Summary: I recently found this podcast from a list of recommendations from the Edutopia blog, and I have become an active listener. In this episode, host Vicki Davis interviews Kimberly Mitchell, author of the book Experience inquiry: 5 powerful strategies, 50 practical experiences. Tips involved sharing curiosity with students by telling them what you are interested in learning more about, and encouraging students to develop open rather than closed questions (where open questions invite more thoughtful responses). One of the questions Mitchell has found especially useful is, “How do you know that?” This encourages students to share their sources and examine how they come to conclusions. It is important to note that the host discloses this was a sponsored episode and she did receive some form of compensation, but I have found her work to be credible and I felt the ideas discussed were aimed at supporting teachers rather than selling books.

Evaluation: I found this to be an engaging discussion with practical suggestions that will be easy to implement. Both host and guest are interested in supporting student learning by helping students remain curious. Curious learners have more questions, which I have found to be the basis of inquiry. The quality of questions a learner has reflects their interest in a subject, and the search for thoughtful answers encourages them to continue on their personal quests for knowledge.