Personal Inquiry project Trevor Collins Knowledge Media Institute The Open University, UK

2 / 21 Overview PI project Inquiry learning cycle Structuring an inquiry Collaboration Progression Authoring and customisation Summary

3 / 21 PI project Through a process of participatory design we are developing a toolkit to support personal inquiry learning Iterative approach – Key stage 3 (11-14 year olds) – Geography (OU) & Science (UoN) inquires – Seven trials over the last two years Builds on Drupal content management framework

4 / 21 Inquiry learning cycle Find my topic Decide my inquiry question or hypothesis Plan my methods, equipment, actions Collect my data Analyse and represent my data Respond to my question or hypothesis Share and discuss my inquiry Reflect on my progress

5 / 21 Structuring an inquiry Activities – A constituent task (e.g. form a hypothesis) Phases – Logical groupings of activities (e.g. plan investigation) Stages – Temporal parts of the investigation in which a set of activities are undertaken (e.g. week one)

6 / 21 Structuring an inquiry

7 / 21 Structuring an inquiry

8 / 21 Structuring an inquiry Inquiry – Stages (temporal) – Phases (logical groups) – Activities (tasks)

9 / 21 Actors and audiences Moving between individual, group and class levels

10 / 21 Actors and audiences Add an activity – For which group (specific) Everyone in the class can write a hypothesis – Audience (relative) Each individual writes their own hypothesis

11 / 21 Activity status – Add – Edit – View – Unavailable Progression

12 / 21 Progression Intra-stage transitions – A newly added item can be edited Inter-stage transitions – An editable item can be viewed

13 / 21 Progression

14 / 21 Progression: Control flow and data flow Control flow – Intra and inter stage transitions (i.e. workflow rules) Data flow – Very difficult to represent data flow abstractly – We use concrete instantiation of a generic inquiry cycle

15 / 21 Data flow Find Decide my inquiry question or hypothesis Plan my methods, equipment, actions Collect my data Analyse and represent my data Respond to my question or hypothesis Share Reflect Data flow

16 / 21 Information blocks Information blocks emphasise dependencies between activities

17 / 21 Dynamic activities Choices in activities propagate to other activities

18 / 21 Authoring and customisation

19 / 21 Authoring and customisation

20 / 21 Authoring and customisation

21 / 21 Summary: Personal Inquiry project Structuring – Inquiry stages, phases and activities Collaboration – Moving between individual, group and class levels Progression – Intra-stage and inter-stage transitions Teacher support – Authoring and customisation