1. Inquiring Minds: How to Unlock Teacher Fears and Let Students Learn and Teach Themselves. Da wn Monson Nancy Beckman South Hills Middle School – 7 th Grade Science

2. Questions What are they? How do they look in your class? What is keeping you from doing them? What is the big deal about Inquiry Activities????

3. Pros and Cons Pros Find misconceptions Find level of understanding Applies knowledge so student can use it Develops problem solving skills Cons Time!! Scary!! Can they do it? What if they do it wrong? Is it worth it?

4. Inquiry Activities Our definition: Students’ are given a problem and using their knowledge and skill base, they solve the problem using the scientific method. Open-inquiry/Problem Solving Lesson/ Critical Thinking Safe Environment to Fail, Fail, Learn and Succeed. The fact is there are a range of levels of inquiry activities. A Hierarchy of Inquiry.

5. Level 0: Not Inquiry Fear Factor = no fear, easy, fast, done correctly the first time, sometimes necessary to teach skills Language Arts: An assignment where you pick out the misspelled words and correct them. History: Filling out a map with the appropriate labels. Science: A “cook book” lab

7. How to make an inquiry activity

8. Level 1: Introductory Inquiry Language Arts: Finding the protagonist in a story History: Focus Box – Questions about text and find the correct answers, factual recall questions Science: A lab where the students are given a problem and come up with the answer but there is really only one answer. Fear Factor = little to no fear, students are given a problem but there is only one way to solve it, like training wheels – sometimes necessary

12. Making a Level 0 a Level 1

13. Level 2: Partial Inquiry Language Arts: Taking any story and finding the events that lead to the outcome. History: Give students an open-ended question and documents and then have them determine the answer using the documents, argumentative paper Science: A lab where students come up with the procedure and then perform it. Fear Factor = minimal fear, students are given a problem and there are 3-4 different ways to solve the problem

17. Making a Level 1 a Level 2

18. Level 3: Complete Inquiry Language Arts: Writing a paper from a writing prompt, Stranded on a desert island paper History: Research projects and papers, document based questions, find documents to support answers Science: Mad Scientist Labs Fear Factor = Paralyzing fear, students are given a problem and there are an infinite number of ways to solve it

25. Making a Level 2 a Level 3

26. Level 4: The Ultimate Inquiry Language Arts: Give the students the topic of the Titanic and have them create a question, do research and write a paper (argumentative, factual, etc) on what they found. Utah Studies: Give the students the topic of Pioneers and have them perform each step of the scientific method using historical skills to create a presentation of some sort. Science: Give the students the topic of osmosis and have them perform each step of the scientific method with a question of their own choosing. Some topics don’t lend themselves well to this inquiry. Topics are usually processes/overall themes. Fear Factor = Just might kill us fear! Students are given a topic and use each step of the scientific method to create a question and answer the question.

27. Ironically Easier and better Cons Time!! Scary!! Can they do it? What if they do it wrong? Your students can do more than you think they can, just give them the chance.

28. What topics do you have a hard time making inquiry?

29. Where to get our labs/activities: http://msbeckman7thgradescience.wikispaces.com http://dawnmonson.wikispaces.com Under the “USTA Inquiry Labs” tab