In the past week I have done no further implementation of my GAME plan so this will have to be an overview of the process as a whole.
1. How effective were your actions in helping you meet your goals? I am still on pace to introduce inquiry lessons at the beginning of the year next school year. I have already identified some lessons that I could modify and make into mini investigations to train students in what is expected of them when they do investigations in math class. I also have prepared a couple of investigation activities for later in the school year that, even though they are not complete yet will be by the time I am going to use them.
2. What have you learned so far that you can apply in your instructional practice? After using one of my plans for an activity at a math content meeting and watching math teachers struggle with what I thought of as a basic activity I realized that I need to make sure, especially in the beginning, that I am very explicit with all of my instructions. In addition when I use logic puzzles to assist in teaching a topic I need to spend time in the days leading up to the actual activity introducing the logic puzzle so students become comfortable with the puzzle before it becomes tied to the curriculum.
3. What do you still have to learn? What new questions have arisen? I still need to learn how to respond to students who use activity time as a time to slack off. I need to look at what procedures I need to put in place for when I have students who are not on task.
4. How will you adjust your plan to fit your current needs? I do not see a need to adjust my plan at the present time.
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Ryan,
ReplyDeleteOne view that I understand through experience as a teacher is that we do not really learn a teaching strategy, until it is applied in our classroom. I remember taking educational psychology in college and remembering how tedious it was to learn about Garner, Skinner, etc... and their learning strategies. At that point in my life, it was a process of memorizing facts that had little meaning to me. After teaching for seven years, I find myself looking back on the information from that class and finding it fascinating and very informative. The problem is that I had no reference point to base my knowledge on in college, because I had little experience teaching kids.
My point is that you can plan an inquiry based project, but you probably won't have many ideas on improvement until it is applied in your class. When it's finally applied in your class, I am sure the the sparks of genius on how to do this better will flow through your brain. The school year is less than half over and if I where you , I wouldn't wait till the beginning of the next school year. Inquiry-based teaching doesn't have to be a huge long, time-consuming ordeal. Just start with something really small.
Charles
Charles,
ReplyDeleteI did not mean to say that I will do no inquiry based projects this year. To fulfill my GAME plan I want to be prepared to introduce inquiry based learning next year early so students grow in their ability to work independently to a point where I could give them a topic and have them do their own research to learn the topic on their own.