Making Sense of Inquiry

Dr. Shelley Robinson, Assistant Principal

I still grapple with making sense of inquiry-based learning, and have discovered that thinking about inquiry in the following ways, helps me to better understand it as an educator and a parent.

Inquiry is the process of seeking information through questioning. The levels of questioning can vary depending on the type of knowledge being sought after and the degree to which a student must understand.

CSS Library: "Little Blurts of Info"

Ian Brown just won the coveted Charles Taylor Prize for literary nonfiction, and before that, for this same book, the National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction.

During his acceptance speech, Mr. Brown was quoted in The Globe and Mail Feb. 09/10, A(2) referring to online reading as “little blurts of information”.

Do we approach online research differently than print research? Technology does offer fast food information. Do we go deeper when needed? More importantly, do we structure our teaching and inquiry projects to lead students to search deeply, question sources and relevancy of information offered, or do these little blurts of information suffice?

Historical Ditigal Storytelling Presentation

One of our Humanities Teachers, Chris Dittmann, recently gave a presentation at the South Western Alberta Teachers Conference (SWATCA) on a grade 5 digital storytelling project.

The project has previously been explained on this post.

Here's a copy of the presentation given by Chris, with one of the full examples of grade 5 student work:

Canada Our Stories Conference Presentation

View more presentations from Calgary Science School

CSS Library: Digital Immigrants teaching Natives

Donna Alden, Teacher-Librarian

What assumptions do we as educators (digital immigrants) make, while planning for inquiry-based projects for students who are digital natives?

As an educator, library professional and digital immigrant, what do I need to consider in a school with a one-to-one laptop project underway, with students who are indisputably digital natives? As a constructivist, I approach teaching as a “facilitator/scaffolder”. With Wiggins and McTigue’s ‘“understanding by design” format engrained in my thinking, I consider what students need to learn, and develop activities for students, working from what they know and understand, to what has been identified as needing to be learned.

My task is to consider what the teacher (as the key curriculum professional) has identified as the important curriculum outcomes in an inquiry project, and match those to some information literacy outcomes the students require in order to locate, select, synthesize and communicate their inquiry project’s findings. At this point we identify one or more related information literacy outcomes those students in this project require some integrated instruction on, in order to be successful. But what are we assuming those students already know, or are skilled in?

To understand that topics develop from general and broad to specific and narrow, and to be adept at generating alternative search terms, are easily demonstrated and learned when using print resources. But, they are also necessary skills for searching online library catalogues. When those skills and understandings transfer to students’ online searches, aren’t they more skillful searchers and consumers of online information? My knowledge base includes what resources are best sources for specific searches. Is that necessary in the digital information world? Is there a schema in our students’ approaches to locating, selecting and synthesizing relevant information? Is it the same as mine? Doubtful. Mine was developed from a print-based setting- our students’ from a digitally based setting. What implications does this present when we plan, implement, teach and evaluate a simple research project, or an inquiry project?

CSS Library: Changes So Far...

Donna Alden, Teacher-Librarian

What changes in the school library program and collection have I already made in response to the 24/7-technology access our students have at this school?

For sure, over the past two years, when planning learning activities with teachers, I’m putting much less emphasis into instructional strategies for accessing information in print resources, and more on introducing and providing opportunities for students develop knowledge and skills associated with online information sources, including online databases and Internet sites. What stays the same is that these learning activities remain embedded in project activities, and are not separate or isolated “library lessons”.

Google Docs versus Wikis

Here at the Science School, I would say that Google Docs has become one of the tech tools that has had the greatest uptake across our classrooms. Over the last couple years, students and teachers have begun using this tool to take collaborative notes and study guides, peer edit across classes and grades, make group presentations and have shared planning sessions with other teachers.

A couple of our classrooms have also begun to design work using wikis as the tool for collaboration, rather than Google Docs. Wikis are a type of webpage that are easily created and edited by anyone you give permission to.

Grade 8s Need Help from Calgary Experts

"Does Calgary have the necessary conditions to be a Renaissance City?

This is the overarching question that grade 8 students at the Calgary Science School are currently working to answer. Over the last few months, students researched particular areas of the Renaissance, including trade/commerce, religion/spirituality, and art/culture to ascertain what conditions, developments and unique features were present in northern Italy during the 16th century. After completing their research, the students have condensed their findings into a short presentation video- with the intention of demonstrating the particular conditions that led to the flourishing of the Italian City States during the Italian Renaissance.

CSS Library - 1:1 Changes

Donna Alden, Teacher-Librarian

What changes in the school library program and collection have I already made in response to the 24/7-technology access our students have at this school?

Over the past two years, less emphasis is put on strategies for accessing information in print resources, and more has been placed on instruction and guidance in accessing online information sources, including online databases and Internet sites.

The school library collection reflects changes in the way it is being developed. Many topics students include in research and inquiry projects are truly better researched online. Topics as diverse as Canadian politics and legislation, cultural and demographic information, health topics, natural disasters and the topics such as the pine beetle epidemic are examples that can best be searched via the Internet and online databases. It’s neither practical nor effective to try to develop those parts of the nonfiction collection that require constant weeding and updating. Many magazines, journals and newspapers are available online and through online databases, and websites like Stats Canada and various almanacs make print sources obsolete and impractical for most school libraries.

I do see a place in a school library collection for some almanacs, atlases and other works of reference, as well as general and specific nonfiction areas. For one thing, access to some information is quicker than online (believe it…we test this often!), but I’m also convinced that seeing works of reference and nonfiction in a concrete format, permits a better understanding of how certain kinds of information are categorized and organized for access, and this understanding should be developed in our student body.

To understand that topics move from general and broad, to specific and narrow, and to be adept at generating alternative search terms, are easily demonstrated and reinforced when using print resources. But, they are also necessary skills for searching online library catalogues, and when those skills and understandings transfer to students’ online searches, I believe they become more skillful searchers and consumers of online information.

Grade 9: Food or Fuel

This project is a grade 9 Science Project examining the topic of biofuel development. Students were introduced to the topic through a powerpoint presentation designed to hook the students with some of the controversial facts on the issue.

Students worked through the development of a number of research questions, and then began a collaborative research process using school-hosted blogs.

All of this lead to the creation of a public service announcement (PSA) designed to make an emotional connection to the issue.

Grade 4 Regions: Project Outline

Previously on the site, we had shared a grade 4 project designed to cover the Alberta's regions component of the Social Studies Program of Studies.

Basically, the goal of the project is to have students, in groups of 4, design the layout for a community that combines their content understanding of a particular geographic region (natural resources, vegetation, unique geographical features) with some basic concepts of sustainable development.

The teachers met yesterday and planned out some of the particulars of the project. You can access the planning document and outline of the project here (including some initial drafts of rubrics).

"Examining Student Work" Introduction

As written before, our school wide focus this year is on examining student work to highlight student understanding. We have developed a framework through which teachers will collaborative examine a particular project from their classroom. The framework leads through an examination of (1) the key outcomes behind the project (2) the assessments used and (3) how the student work demonstrates deep understanding of the desired outcomes.

The purpose is to critically examine a planned unit, and to take seriously the nature of student work produced. It's our belief that carefully examining student work is a key element, if not the most important, in moving our collective practice forward.

Over the last month we have tested this framework with two different sets of teachers. The conversations were lengthy, one was 5 hours and one was 3, but we believe that a sustained and protected amount of time is necessary to engage in a deep analysis of student work.

During the two 'practice' sessions, many interesting and valuable insights were uncovered about the projects. After participating, all four teachers spoke very highly of the process, and all found some key elements of their practice that they want to focus on in future projects. These teachers were really excited about the process, both for themselves and for the collective professional learning of the staff.

One of the really powerful outcomes of the practice sessions was a series of voice-recordings. We audio-recorded both discussions, and then pulled out clips to highlight the depth of critique we hope all teachers will bring to the discussion. The teachers involved agreed to having these clips shown back to the staff - a vulnerable step, but such an important one to set the tone for making our practice more public.

These teachers have gone the next step and agree to have their discussions publicly available. Each of the following clips are about 5 minutes long, and give a glimpse into the depth of analysis that came out of these collaborative discussions.

After conducting the two practice discussions, we introduced the "Examining Student Work" framework to the rest of the teachers. Last Friday one of our staff, Neil Stephenson, gave a presentation on the framework, shared the audio-recordings from the practice discussions, and had teachers begin the process of collecting evidence for the facilitated discussions. Teachers will have a month to gather the necessary artifacts, and create a short presentation. The reflective discussions with the rest of the staff will take place on February 11th.

Here's the presentation given by Neil that introduces the "Examining Student Work" process. The actual framework and guiding questions can be found here.

Inquiring Into Teaching Learning

View more presentations from Neil.Stephenson.

Finally, here's a video of Neil introducing the theoretical background of the framework during our PD day last friday. As we continue to move forward with the process, we'll share teacher reflections and outcomes. We're excited about the emerging possibilities.

"Examining Student Work" - Reflective PD

This year our Professional Development goals are focused on three question:

1. What do we want students to know?
2. How do we know that they've learned it?
3. What do we do when they haven't learned it?

These questions are so deceptively simple - yet as you begin to unpack them - so many discourses about good teaching and learning come falling out. Even taking seriously the first question - what do we want them to know? - unravels into many questions about what counts as something worth understanding.

In our experience, it's difficult to boil a curricular topic down to a key essence or 'enduring understanding.' If we're looking at forestry, or pi, or european explorers, what are the core outcomes that I want students to 'get' or 'develop' or 'uncover' ? (or whatever metaphor best fits the experience of understanding something) This requires a solid understanding of the content knowledge, in addition to having an ability to connect the content knowledge to real-world disciplines, and also finding space for students to locate themselves within the study to build engagement.

But as a staff, we've also seen how crucial it is to take the time to make these core goals clear before starting on a project or study. If the teacher isn't sure where a particular project is going, then how are students going to be able to know where to go - and how is a teacher going to collect evidence that they've demonstrated or performed the core understandings that are the focus of the study?

The second question - how do I know if they've learned it - relies heavily on the first. As teachers, we need to set clear outcomes for the study and for the students. These outcomes need to be clearly articulated, and then the assessment practices that are used need to be strongly linked to helping students improve their understanding of the core outcomes.

One of the key PD experiences of our staff this year is to work through a process where they take one project/lesson/study that they've done in their class, and reflect back on it using these three questions. And this year, we want to focus mostly on the second question - how do we know if students have a deep understanding of a particular topic? What would constitute evidence of deep understanding? To achieve this we're having our teachers work through this reflective structure.

At the end of the day, the focus must be on the student work. We want teachers to be able to collect artifacts of learning - evidence that students have demonstrated deep understanding of the core outcomes of the project. We are asking teachers (in teaching paris) to collect assignment sheets, rubrics used and finally, examples of student work that demonstrate beginning, novice and mastery of a given topic.

Our school's plan is to collect these reflections, along with student work, rubrics and assignments and make them publicly available through this site. For our teachers, this becomes yet another level of vulnerability - being willing to admit what worked, didn't work, and what you'd like to change about a project is something not many educators are willing to share in a public forum. But we're moving ahead - and these reflections are a key part of our school wide focus on making our practice more public.

For now, we'd appreciate feedback. What do you think of the structure? The questions? And as an outsider - what would you love to hear from our teachers as they wrestle with building strong inquiry - based work?

As always, we continue to appreciate any thoughts or comments shared.

Thoughts from the CSS Library - Resources

Donna Alden, Teacher-Librarian

So, are all students becoming critical consumers of Internet sources? Are we purposefully integrating the teaching of strategies students need to critically evaluate sources of information before they select them off the Internet?

In any collaborative planning with teachers, one of the first points of discussion after deciding upon the inquiry question and how the product and/or process will be evaluated, is that of key resources that will be accessed by students. Not that many years ago, we would have integrated knowledge of specific key print resources to be used, depending upon the topic or assignment.

At a school with a 24/7 access to technology, however, it goes without saying that online resources will be accessed, if not exclusively, certainly most often. So, will it be an open Internet search, or will it involve websites pre-selected by the teacher? Younger students are most often steered toward the online databases available to Alberta students through the Alberta Learning website (Online Reference Centre), as well as “kid-friendly” search engines to do Internet searches. These two guidelines usually are all that are required to ensure students are accessing reliable resources.

However, even at the younger grades, evaluative criteria for Internet resources are continually being introduced and required as an integral aspect of online inquiry. As students advance through the grades, so too must their evaluative skills and knowledge. There are many online evaluative tools available, but as our teachers and students become more experienced, I notice that the evaluative criteria are becoming more astute, practical, quick and effective. They are often shared among teachers, and thus students gradually become equipped with an evolving, and deepening toolbox of evaluative strategies necessary for being wise consumers of information sources on the Internet.

Flickr image from Here's Kate

Have You Used This Blog?

We're now about half way into our first year of experimenting with this Connect Blog, and we're hoping to get some feedback from those educators who are accessing it. Our goal is to gather some data on the impact of this form of Outreach, and receive feedback on how we might improve the content.

So, if you have read content on this blog, and made use of any of the resources in your classroom, or if you have been impacted to think different about any elements of your teaching practice, would you please consider taking a couple of minutes to complete this short form?

Your feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Thoughts from the CSS Library - Databases

Donna Alden, Teacher-Librarian

A library that has been professionally managed, whether in a school, academic or public library has resources that have been evaluated and selected for a specific user population. Searching for information in that library should garner reliable results. Once the search expands to an Internet search, the evaluation and selection procedure becomes the responsibility of the researcher, and that’s not a bad thing.

It does, however, necessitate making clear that the Internet is not a huge online “library”, where resources have been evaluated, selected, and organized for access in the same way as a library. There is a basis of trust we assume when searching for information in a library, a basic understanding of what the function of a library is, that really shouldn’t be transferred to the Internet. Do we make this clear when working with students researching online?

On the other hand, online databases, to my mind, are true “libraries”, collections of evaluated and selected online resources by library professionals for specific purposes. And in so many ways, the value of online databases far surpasses that of a print collection. Factors such as cost, space, scope and depth of information, format, currency and ease of access weigh heavily on the online resources side of the decision.

I notice students who may struggle with spelling still can’t always locate their topic, but certainly alphabetical order is no longer an issue! The hot linked cross-references, see also’s, related and suggested topics greatly enhance the results in an inquiry, and far surpass print indexes.

Another huge bonus with online databases- many offer a variety of resource formats- encyclopedia articles, newspapers and magazines, multimedia, and website links, many more and to greater scope than many public and academic, but certainly, school libraries could hope to hold.

Flickr image from Here's Kate

Grade 8 Worldview Survey is Live!

Our Grade 8 study of Worldviews is in full swing. As written before, the students have created a survey with the hopes of gathering global data on worldview trends.

The students worked with Rob Pegg to learn the important elements of survey design. We then had our grade 9 students critique the grade 8 survey questions, providing detailed feedback and suggestions on how to refine the survey.

We then used Skype to video-conference with Wes Fryer, a leading educational technologist and blogger in Oklahoma. Wes provided our students with insights into current social and communication tools, and how they can be used to spread messages virally.

And now we have begun to spread the survey out into the world!

So far, in the first 24 hours of the survey we have had over 850 responses from 34 different countries! We will continue collecting responses for a month - and then the students will begin the task of analyzing the results.

Please feel free to complete the survey yourself, and pass it on to your own contacts. We're particularly trying to get results from non-North American countries.

You can access the survey by clicking here.

Grade 8: Creating Effective Surveys

Our grade 8 students are currently in the middle of large-scale study, combining both the Worldview and Renaissance components of the Social Studies curriculum. This study contains two sections, first the creation of a worldview survey, and then a study on the Renaissance, comparing the Italian City States to the conditions in contemporary Calgary.

To help with the first component, we've had few experts participate in the study, bringing the element of authenticity into the work. A few weeks ago our students Skyped with Wes Fryer, who informed us of some of the recent changes in networking technology, and how they are changing the way information is accessed and shared.

We had another guest speaker in a few weeks ago, Rob Pegg, who's one of the parents at our school and also a web designer. In his own line of work, Rob has often designed and implemented surveys, and so the teachers asked him to come speak, providing the students with a number of elements to consider when putting together an effective and unbiased survey.

After listening to Rob, the students discovered that making survey questions that pull out someone's worldview is very difficult. There are so many factors that influence someone's view of the world, and also the students found it challenging to make 'objective' survey questions that highlighted the key elements of someone's worldview, without being vague, general or leading.

After collaboratively writing the questions, we put the first version of the survey into Survey Monkey, and have since had our grade 9 students test the survey. Also, Survey Monkey has the feature of allowing comments on individual questions, so we asked two classes of grade 9s (who had just finished a math unit on surveys) to provide feedback on all the questions. The grade 9s were able apply the content they recently covered (on topics such as 'question bias', 'answer bias' and 'leading questions') to give focused feedback to the grade 8s on their questions.

The grade 8 are currently revising the questionnaire, and will be releasing it publicly in the new year - hoping to receive as many responses as they can from around the globe.

Grade 7: Remixing Historical Perspective

One of our grade 7 Humanities teachers, Dan McWilliam, just finished a project with his grade 7 students. In order to understand the concept of perspective in historical accounts, Dan had his students re-write a 'picture book' on colonialization from an alternate perspective.

Dan used the book "The Rabbits," written by John Marsden and illustrated by Shaun Tan. "The Rabbits" is an incredible visual story of a group of rabbits (the colonizers) who arrive in a new land, spreading their worldview over the native marsupials who reside there. The art work is stunning, and weaves in fantastic imagery of western philosophy and expansionism.

The original book,"The Rabbits" is told from the point of view of the native marsupials, and so Dan wanted his students to explore the motivations of the colonizing rabbits, so he had his students retell the story from their alternate perspective.

Working in pairs, the students were each assignment one page out of the original book. Students then had to imagine how the events on the particular page might be retold from the perspective of the colonizers, rather than the 'natives.' Dan scanned pages from the original book, and the students remixed pieces with other images they found. The students used Abode Firework to create the new pages, and then Dan assembled the pages, and had one book published from each of his two classes.

Through the re-telling of the story, both from the rabbits' perspective, as well as through the lens of Canadian History, the students included historical details relating to the fur trade, the signing of land treaties and residential schools. The students creatively used historical images from events in Canadian history, and using Fireworks, replaced the heads of the characters with the heads of rabbits and marsupials. In doing so, the students were able to weave in historical understanding and demonstrate an ability to retell historical events from alternative perspectives.

Here's a digital slideshow showing one of the two classes retold storybook:

Peace Festival

Every year at this time, our school community comes together around an event called Peace Festival.

Peace Festival started many years ago as a way to celebrate the multicultural make-up of our student body. It was also a way to focus our entire school population (teachers, students and admin) around topics of human rights, global awareness and the difficult living conditions of many people around our city, country and the world.

Grade 6 Graphic Design

Some of our grade 6 students have recently finished a large scale writing project, called the Penny Book project. This project involves students writing a series of short stories, capturing memories from different years of their lives.

The students have just finished all the planning, writing, editing and polishing of the stories, and the next step is to get their writing ready for printing. To do this the students are going to be introduced to the basics of graphic design and page layouts. To get the students creating effective page layouts for their stories, we're using a two-step process.