Torch - Fall 2012

JUNIOR SCHOOL

Learning Through a Guided Inquiry Framework

By Nicole Davies

I n our complex information age dominated by the Internet, students cannot possibly learn all the content there is to know. Teachers must move away from an emphasis on learning facts and shift towards teaching students how to learn and how to take responsibility for their own learning. Students must become critical consumers of information as well as knowledge builders. The massive amounts of information available at our fingertips requires us to teach our students how to filter information for quality and accuracy, synthesize it for relevance and build and apply knowledge through connection- making and idea generation. The Guided Inquiry framework is a teaching and learning methodology that promotes the development of a community of learners while building the important research and inquiry skills that are required by 21st century students. It offers a flexible method of integrating skills in a way that is relevant to students. Using this framework, teachers help students focus on a question or problem, which they are then required to investigate using a wide range of information sources. Within a given area of the curriculum, an instructional team of teachers, including the classroom teacher, teacher librarian, information technology teacher and STEM teacher, work together as appropriate to support student understanding. The Guided Inquiry process requires students to be curious problem solvers in order to answer their own questions and to build understanding of complex concepts. It puts students in the driver’s seat of their own learning within a framework designed by the teacher. This process

helps students to recognize that they can be more than knowledge consumers—they can be knowledge builders. In both the Junior and Upper Schools, teachers are developing Guided Inquiry units of study. For example, students in Grade 5 are learning about ancient civilizations through a series of Guided Inquiry sessions. At a recent inquiry session, students explored ideas about how the modern world has been influenced by the innovations of early civilizations. While rotating through 12 inquiry stations—each containing a different modern day artifact such as makeup, a calendar and paper—students were asked to decide where and when each artifact was invented. Working in small groups, students shared their ideas and recorded their thinking in their inquiry journals. In a subsequent session, students revisited each of the 12 stations, which now included written information and photographs about where and when each artifact was actually invented. Students were amazed to learn that each artifact was actually an ancient innovation. This process guided students toward an understanding that early civilizations were sophisticated, technologically advanced societies that are strongly linked to our lives today. It allowed the students to construct this understanding for themselves, rather than being told the information by their teacher. As educators rethink what 21st century students may need in order to successfully live and work in our complex and unpredictable world, Guided Inquiry is one strategy that Havergal teachers are using to help our students navigate the changing world.

Nicole Davies, Junior School Teacher Librarian

FALL 2012 THE TORCH 15