This quarter in my graduate studies in Digital Educational Leadership at Seattle Pacific University, I am exploring the ISTE Teaching Standards as a follow up to my study of the ISTE Student Standards last quarter. I am beginning with a look at ISTE Teaching Standard 1, which centers on facilitating and inspiring student learning and creativity.
My compelling triggering questions – How can my middle school humanities students be driven to ask the right questions that foster their curiosity, wonder, and follow-thru? How can I promote and support their excitement while still teaching them reading/writing skills and time management?
As I am currently working from our recently acquired Schoolwide Inc. Research Report Writer’s Workshop Unit — immersion section it shows how to model the importance of well-formed questions in the research process. One of the mentor texts we are using with the students is Inventing the Future: A Photobiography of Thomas Alva Edison by Marfe Ferguson Delano, a former writer for National Geographic.
“Before our mentor author generated her questions, she thought about her purposes: the reason why she wrote her book. In this case, our mentor author, Marfe Ferguson Delano, is a writer for National Geographic and is keenly interested in sharing her research with students so that they not only get to read informative and exciting facts but are also inspired to read and learn more. She also has a theme running through her entire book — one that connects to Thomas Edison’s motivation and tenacity toward learning the “whys” and “why nots” of how things worked, as well as what he could do to ‘always learn more.’”
- What was Thomas Alva Edison’s motivation to experiment, explore, and work toward improving dimensions o the physical world?
- How did Edison deal with the disappointment of patents that failed?
- Why were Edison’s early school experiences clouded by people’s misperceptions of him?
- What caused Edison’s mother to take over as his teacher?
- What was the impetus for Edison to have an irrepressible urge to experiment?
Along with this demonstration and a few others students are then supposed to understand how compelling questions can help lead them to better topics and research. With my two sections of advanced 8th-grade language arts it was a seamless transition from demonstration to proficient execution of the task. For example, one of my students chose Archimedes’ Contribution to Science as his topic (on his own), his research question was “How did Archimedes inventions help him and others around the world?” This helped lead his research in the correct direction and not get distracted by extraneous details. But as I did the same process with my general 8th-grade language arts students the jump from picking the topic and the purpose/meaning behind that choice was difficult. And it was even more difficult for them to come up with creative questions to steer their research in the right directions. It was hard to assist them when sometimes verbalizing why they chose their topic in general was frustrating for them. I received answers like “because I like that topic” or “it interests me” well that is wonderful but when I would push them for deeper answers I got blank stares of confusion. My first thoughts were that these blank stares were because they were given so little choice in their topics in the past or not enough people ask them why they find a particular topic more appealing than another. But who knows, in the end I need all my students to create compelling questions that push them to want to find the answers through research. After reading the required resources and keeping track of it all on Google Keep I felt like I had a good grasp of the first ISTE Teaching Standard-1 and knew what I wanted to research to help answer my compelling question.
Therefore, I decided to read and watch Edutopia’s article/video about Wildwood IB World Magnet School, in Chicago, “Inquiry-Based Learning: Developing Student-Driven Questions”. This Edutopia resource regarding the idea of Inquiry-Based Learning and what happens when the whole school gets behind the same idea and methodology. Students in the video embrace the idea of a questions based school. They have become the power behind most of the lessons, and the teachers are very flexible with their lessons and the direction their student’s questions take them. One example in the video is from a teacher who was doing a unit on economics and from the students’ questions she and her PLC changed directions to concentrate on billionaires and how they got so rich. Then one of the teachers pops in to comment on how the students are dealing with the question model and she states “Inquiry-based learning is just a fancy word for curiosity, right?” (Compton, 2014). Which I believe is true, and this idea is shared with ISTE specifically when Helen Crompton wrote “Creativity appears in many
forms, from creating physical models to creating questions. It is the teacher’s role to make students aware that there are multiple ways to get to understanding and that they need to investigate and ask questions” (Compton, 2014). The written post includes the overall plan and inspiration behind the inquiry-based model along with some resources that teachers and students can use to help support their shift from their current model. One of the resources goes into the four phases of inquiry-based learning, Interaction, Clarification, Questioning, and Design. Which I imagine as a funnel that is ever narrowing towards a more and more focus ending. All of this encompasses the necessity 
of “Student-led choice will encourage them to tap their own initiative, knowledge, and interests to complete the task” (Compton, 2014). In the classroom allowing for student directed choice is so important. I try to allow for options and variety as much as possible. Behind it all though it requires student’s interest and excitement. So I suppose I will keep going with the idea I started with and I will keep encouraging them to try to figure out what is the motivation behind their thought process.
Crompton, H. (2014, May 1). ISTE standards for teachers 1: facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity. Learning & Leading Through Technology – May 2014. Retrieved from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/may_2014#pg46
Heick, Terry. “4 Phases of Inquiry-Based Learning: A Guide For Teachers.” TeachThought. N.p., 05 Nov. 2015. Web. 06 Apr. 2017. Retrieved from http://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/4-phases-inquiry-based-learning-guide-teachers/
Wildwood IB World Magnet School Staff. “Inquiry-Based Learning: Developing Student-Driven Questions.” Edutopia. George Lucas Educational Foundation, 24 Aug. 2015. Web. 02 Apr. 2017.https://www.edutopia.org/practice/wildwood-inquiry-based-learning-developing-student-driven-questions
