Reflection

My biggest takeaway is that inquiry is not so daunting after all. I have learned a lot in this course and it has really stretched my brain to look at my methods in a new way. While I can’t say that I am 100% confident yet with inquiry (maybe 93.5%?), I now certainly have many resources to refer back to and I have new skills under my belt. I feel like I am ready to engage in putting inquiry into practice in my work with my students and I think that the more I flex these new muscles, the easier it will come. 

Module 3 - The Inquiry Mindset really inspired me to look deeper at myself and how I work with my students. When I watched the video on FLOW, it occurred to me how lucky I have been in my teaching career. While many may think it’s a hard gig to change from one school to another (in 15 years, I have taught at 7 different schools), I feel like it gives me new challenges and new opportunities. I cherish the experiences, connections, and skills I gain and I look forward to what comes next; I am never stagnant. The opportunity I have in my current position of teaching Challenge gives me a small group of exceptional students to work and play with. They and I are not necessarily encumbered by traditional classroom expectations and this past year has given me a chance to get to know them, gauge their interests, and tailor activities that challenge how they think and open their eyes to what we can accomplish together. I love what I do in the LLC with all the students that I interact with but this group pushes me to be more and I want their learning to be more as well, more engaging, more empowering.

 

Module 9 - Driving Inquiry with Questions proved for me to the most enlightening in terms of elasticizing my thinking. The learning prompt that I engaged with gave me pause as I really worked to stretch the way I approached presenting ideas and topics to my students. I would concur with past students of this course that the exercise of replicating Wiggins and McTighe’s essential questions charts was more than worthwhile.

 

I appreciated the caliber of materials offered in this course to help in my understanding of inquiry and its application. I would highlight the following two as some of the most helpful in my navigation:

 

Fontichiaro’s Nudging towards Inquiry articles - These concise articles were everything I could ask for, practical, useful and anxiety-reducing.

 

Excerpts from Kath Murdoch’s The Power of Inquiry - I love resources that lay-out information clearly and provide me with applicable practices that I can readily see myself using with my students.

 

This course scaffolded my learning from one module to the next and I could see how each part extended and worked together. I have enjoyed my time here and I appreciate that this course has given me a solid foundation on which to build and push an inquiry mindset in how I teach.

 

Works cited

FightMediocrity. (2015). “Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihaly: animated book review.” [video].

Fontichiaro, K. (2011a). Nudging toward inquiry - Formative assessment. School Library Monthly27(6): 11-12.

Fontichiaro, K. (2011b). Nudging toward inquiry - Summative assessment. School Library Monthly 27(7): 12-13.

Fontichiaro, K. (2013). Nudging toward inquiry - Move beyond traditional research. School Library Monthly 30(1): 49

Fontichiaro, K. (2015). Nudging toward inquiry - Framing inquiry with scenarios. School Library Monthly 31(3): 50-51.

 

Murdoch, K. (2015). The power of inquiry. Seastar.

 

Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2013). Essential questions: opening doors to student understanding. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.