We were lucky to have Jeff Hopkins, founder and principal educator of the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry (PSII) that opened in September, 2013, present to our class this week. Jeff has taken his passion for inquiry-based learning and opened a school that he hopes will become mainstream, so that everyone can learn based on their personal preferences, experiences and interests, creating intrinsic motivation and a love for learning.

The steps of the inquiry process

At the PSII, students are gifted with learning through free inquiry. As Jeff stated, inquiry is great, but students must know how to tackle and handle their inquiries. So, the school takes teaches them how to do so.

The first day of school – help develop questions:

Many students will say that they are not interested in anything and therefore cannot think of an inquiry question. What these students do not realize, is that literally ANYTHING can be their inquiry, so of course they are interested in something. Jeff stated that he has yet to find something that cannot be turned into an inquiry.

Additionally, Jeff stated that you want to help them develop questions by giving them ideas, but you do not want to just give them questions, because this takes away a lot of the learning process and creativity in discovering your own questions.

Research:

The next step in the school’s inquiry process is to start researching the chosen inquiry. This can be done by typical research through reading, through experimentation, through talking to people and more.

Refine questions:

The next step is completed once students become comfortable with the vocabulary around their inquiry topic. Students can refine their questions or come up with new questions. The goal is to make the questions as specific as possible!

Develop learning activities:

The students at PSII will develop learning activities that will help them dive into learning about their inquiry. This can be done as a project or something in the community, as a series of lectures at PSII, or basically anything the students want!

Assessment:

PSII measures competencies from the BC curriculum based off of goals that students made for themselves alongside their teachers.

How can this be applied to public elementary schools?

As a future educator, it will be my job to teach the curriculum to students, however there is no set way of doing this. Many teachers split up the curriculum into arbitrary subjects, like containers, but Jeff warns of the dangers of this. He says it is good to be interdisciplinary and teach multiple things at one time, as an inquiry does. Since we don’t have to complete things in a certain order, and in elementary school we do not need a mark for a course, we can merge subject areas together to complete the curriculum in that way. This way of teaching and learning considers the whole person and what they need in order to learn and grow. As a teacher, this way of school is an alien structure to most, but it is not ‘unstructured’. Rather, teachers must go with the flow and ensure students know what they are to be doing.

While this idea of teaching and learning intrigues me, it is all so new and unfamiliar, and is not what I have witnessed within schools, so I will keep these ideas in mind, however I am not sure I will be able to follow them exactly. I think that slowly integrated this way of education will be how I navigate inquiry-based learning into my classroom.

I will exit this blog entry with a final quote from Jeff Hopkins,

“The whole is greater than the sum of the parts!“

Last week in class, we were joined by Trevor MacKenzie, who informed us about inquiry based learning. MacKenzie is an educator that promotes inquiry, meaningful learning and the discovery of what people truly love to do. As a future educator, I hope to implement inquiry into my classroom, as I think that giving students choice about what they are learning can help them be enthusiastic and passionate about their own learning.

Types of Student Inquiry

https://www.trevormackenzie.com/exclusive-sketchnotes

When teaching with inquiry, it is important to note that inquiry does not mean it is a free for all. Students must be equipped with the proper language and tools and must know the layers and dynamics of inquiry, before getting thrown into a completely free inquiry and being told to go for it. A good idea is to start small and work your way up, beginning with a structured inquiry, then controlled inquiry, then guided inquiry, and finally a free inquiry once you know your students are prepared. This is also a great opportunity to get to know students one-on-one by sitting down with them and working through some of the inquiry process.

10 Characteristics of the Inquiry Classroom

https://www.trevormackenzie.com/exclusive-sketchnotes

Teaching with inquiry can be an amazing way to get students to be intrinsically motivated and loving to learn.

Jesse Miller from Mediated Reality presented in our class this week and educated us about the professional responsibility we as future educators hold when it comes to technology and social media use.

Critical Audiences

As educators, we must be conscious of what we post on social media and the internet in both our professional and personal lives. I recall when I was younger my mom and my teachers stressing how important it was to be careful with what you posted online because it could be around for your whole life. I am thankful now that I was taught this because posting inappropriate content as a younger person could affect me in my journey to becoming a teacher and affect me as a teacher.

Now that I am almost a teacher, it is important to remember to continue posting only appropriate content. There are three audiences that may criticize my use of social media as an educator:

1. The public and parents
2. Staff
3. Students

Something that Jessie said that stood out to me was that if you would not want your students and students parents to see it, you probably shouldn’t post it.

Main Points

• student information should never be shared
• social media does more good than harm
• understand your school’s policies and regulations
• have open discussions with students to guide them in digital literacy
• post carefully
• get permission