Not a handout in sight: Collaborative tools in the Guided Inquiry Design process

 

Sybasigns.com & Kuhlthau, C.C., Maniotes, L.K., & Caspari, A.K. (2012). Guided inquiry design: A framework for inquiry in your school. (Kindle ed.) Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO

This is a second post in a series reflecting on the use of Guided Inquiry Design (GID) as a model for developing information literacy and 21st century learning skills. In this post, I would like to discuss the use of collaborative tools within GID and demonstrate how they add value to the learning process.

As discussed previously, I recently collaborated with a team of Science teachers to design and implement a problem based learning / inquiry unit where students were using the GID process to develop a deep understanding of environmental problems in Taiwan, compare it to Sydney and create a movie which aims to convince and educate others about a possible solution.

Students worked in small groups (inquiry circles) of 3 or 4 students, within their class and year group as a whole (inquiry community) while also accessing a global inquiry community whereby they were given opportunities to connect with students from our Taiwan sister school to access information.

Collaborative tools were an incredibly important part of this process because they enabled the students to work effectively in their inquiry circles and communities, whilst also making it super easy to communicate on a global level.

Tools for collaboration:

Google Docs was probably the most important tool for collaboration. As a teacher librarian, I designed Google docs that scaffolded the selection and interpretation of information resources. Students made a copy of the scaffold and shared it within their inquiry circle, enabling all members to simultaneously edit and contribute to the inquiry process.

Google docs also enabled the inquiry community to work collaboratively. Students added inquiry questions to a single Google doc which was shared with the students in Taiwan. They then edited the document with their answers. It worked incredibly well!

Mindmeister was used during the Identify step of the GID process. Inquiry circles collaboratively contributed to a group concept map in a similar fashion to the Google docs. As the teacher librarian, I modeled the use of the Mindmeister concept map with the entire year group and then worked with one member of each inquiry circle to ensure that it was set up and being used effectively. Students commented that it enabled them to synthesise their knowledge of the content and plan for the creation of their movie. They were able to use it to set tasks for inquiry circle members and work to deadlines.

Skype is another tool used to communicate with the students in Taiwan. We utilised our school agile learning space which has a multimedia room for recording and communicating via tools such as Skype. We were only able to fit one student from each class in the room (plus a few teachers), and chose students who had some understanding or were fluent in Mandarin in case of language/communication difficulties. This was a very exciting process and the students in Taiwan really enjoyed sharing their own research with our students here in Australia. The conversation was recorded using Quicktime Player by using the screen recording function. This recording was shared with the rest of the year group by uploading to our library Youtube channel and embedding it into our learning management tool.

Line is a very popular social media application, used extensively in Asian countries such as Taiwan. It is very similar to Whatsapp in that we were able to communicate with the teachers in Taiwan in real time using the chatting function. When evaluating the project, we discussed how this might be more widely implemented for student use next year when the project is repeated.

None of the ICT tools embedded were used for the sake of using technology. I firmly believe that technology is something that should be used to advance learning and not used just for the sake of using it. The collaborative tools enabled students and teachers to share and collaborate beyond the classroom and provided a more authentic learning experience. It also allowed the students to build upon their own knowledge and understanding and gain insight into how students in culturally different situations learn and share information. The students not only engaged in problem solving relating to the content, they also worked within their inquiry circles and community to solve problems to do with technology, team work, language difficulties, creating and communicating their understanding for persuasive purposes. In short, these tools allowed for the building of skills that go beyond “what” they learned, to ones that they will use in the future.

How do you embed technology into your inquiry projects for collaboration? Share your experiences in the comments below!

 

Guided Inquiry Design: Connecting and Collaborating

Hi everyone. It is school holidays here in Australia and we are enjoying some unseasonably good weather. Usually we get loads of rain and instead the sun is ready to play. Although the sunshine is calling me, I thought I would share the first of a series of posts about a Guided Inquiry Design project I have been working on.

You may remember my post about team work from a few weeks ago. I have been working with the Science teachers in a learning team to produce a program for Sustainability as part of their Year 9 curriculum.

In this first post, I wanted to share with you how I go about connecting with teachers within my school. I had read that this is often a challenge for teacher librarians and it is something that I have focused on in my first term at a new school.

According to Montiel-Overal (2005), collaboration has become quite a trend in schools, particularly with the current focus on developing 21 Century skills. Not only is it important for teachers to learn to work collaboratively in order to create connections between content areas, but it is essential that we model this and create opportunities for our students to do this too.

In fact, Wall & Bonnano (2014) identify collaboration as a key 21st century skill to ensure that students are able to contribute to the ever changing society (and workplace). With increasing demands relating to “results” and learning the content being thrown at both our students and teachers, it can be incredibly difficult to convince teachers (and students) that collaborative work is a good idea.

In relation to this particular learning team, I was asked to participate in a meeting where ideas were being thrown about regarding the upcoming project. As a new teacher, this was my first interaction with many of the teachers in the room and I used this as an opportunity to create a clean slate for how the library would position itself. It was also an opportunity to begin building trust, an essential part of having influence within schools.

In my past roles, I have been well known to the teachers within the school (in fact, many of them taught me as a student!). I believe that building relationships based on trust is the way forward for many teacher librarians. Becoming known as an expert in our field, that is, learning to think and inquiry, is the way forward.

Often, working with one teacher or faculty provides the stepping stone to working with others. Laying the groundwork with one teacher by building a relationship based on a mutual understanding of how each of you will contribute to the project will allow word to get around.

I am interested in hearing how you build collaborative relationships with staff. Leave a comment!