research thus far

10/17/12

So it's been going ok so far...  One thing I'm learning is that this whole questioning process, plus the research, looks a lot different with 3rd graders.  They've been having a much more difficult time categorizing questions, but that's ok, because we'll be practicing that all year and over time they'll get it.  I just have to remember to keep spiraling.  Today we worked on researching those questions they prioritized from the ones we generated about the Transcontinental Railroad.  It's actually surprisingly difficult for kids to effectively do a google search that gets them good results.  There are a lot of skills we take for granted when we search on the internet.  Students worked on thinking about what was the main idea, what were the key words within their question that they needed enter into the search engine.  Also, students sometimes had to perform separate, smaller searches to answer a larger question.  But students did get good results, nobody wrote down a ton on their research organizer, but what they did write was for the most part relevant and insightful.  I'll obviously break down their work more concretely and specifically after we finish researching tomorrow at the computer lab and they start putting their research together into a final answer.  I think I'm going to roll this answer into the work we're doing in expedition around paragraph writing.  Yay!  (eye roll)

Pg. 56 of Engaging Readers and Writers with Inquiry

Pitfalls of Essential Questions:
-requires only information retrieval
-begs the question
-is leading
-too generic or general
-too narrow

After coming up with your essential question(s), step 2 is identifying final projects.

The direction for this week

This week I'm going to have my kids read over all the questions that I transcribed from the KWL chart last week.  I'll have them star up to 4 questions that they think are really really good.  I'll ask them to write down what level of thinking they think those questions are, and why they think they're good questions.  We'll use this as a launch into our 1st guiding question: What makes a question good?  I haven't decided how to post guiding questions in the classroom.  Right now I have students post informal questions on the aforementioned KWL chart, and we post questions that students are researching in their independent reading books and that we share and discuss during reading share after independent reading on the clothes line below, underneath the correct category from Bloom's Taxonomy:

I'm thinking guiding questions could be posted at the end of the clothesline, and students could post their research below the question.  This would be different from a Qfocus.  It's important to draw the distinction between a guiding question that I prioritize for students to research, and a Qfocus which my students use to come up with their own questions to research.  I think both have their place, Qfoci let my students take more ownership and independence, guiding questions help the class probe deeper about a more specific topic.  I'm thinking about revamping where students can post their questions about a Qfocus so it looks more like my friend Sari's:

After students prioritize questions and we discuss what made the best questions the best questions, I'll have students research one question in the computer lab (explaining that with questions that have an informational/non-fiction bent, you use different resources than you would for a question based on a fictional text).  After the preliminary research that we do on a research template (modeled by my research on Tiger Rising) we'll talk about how researchers try to compile their research and organize it into an overarching theory, something refined and final that they can present to their peers.  Students will work on this process with a Theory template I've developed.  At the end of the week we'll have select students present their research, and I'll show students that this is a replicable process that they can repeat using the templates and signing up on the calendar for presentations the same way that they sign up for book talks, just with a different color of post-its. 

I'm very curious to see how they take to this process, if they do find it valuable to replicate, and whether I can keep everything about research and questioning straight in my head.  To recap for myself the progression of all these techniques conglomerated:

Think Tank (where I post the current Qfocus of the class and students write smaller questions that they could research and post them in the right level of thinking in the tank)
+
Book Nooks (I'm considering adding a component within this personalized space where students share their personal qfoci and research--> this would give them the space and opportunity to ask questions besides the ones within our whole class Qfocus)

Clothesline (this space could be used either as it is now-for really good questions about any topic/qfocus, or about the really good questions students post on the Think Tank that we vote on as a class to prioritize onto the clothesline.  I'm leaning toward this latter option, and I really want to hype it up and make some sort of really special paper for them to write up prioritized questions that they hang up on the clothesline)

Theory Final Presentation Area (On the other side of the room from Fish Tank and Book Nooks, appropriately connected by clothesline.  This would be where final theories (ie. substantive answers to prioritized questions would go)  This area needs to be hyped too, with pictures of students who post final answers + some sort of title.  like... Master Researcher bestowed upon any student who makes it to this level.  This is an idea inspired by the Light Leader title at Polaris (my school))

thoughts on the direction to go with questions + mini-lit review of inquiry

This was from last week, most of the post-its were inspired by the video we watched on the relationship between cowboys and the Transcontinental Railroad.  Others are miscellaneous.

Here they are transcribed:
-How much cargo fills a car? -Vianey
-Who was the 1st ever cowboy?
-Why are they running when no one is chasing them right now.
-Why did they set there clock by the sun.
-Do people get 5,000 dollars for killing male cows.  Tremayne Miles
-Did these people build trains in the citys
-Why do the shoot the guns in the air and almost kill people. -Anyah 
-Are cowboys vegetarians? -Vianey
-Why would he like guns? -Vianey
-Do all cowboys have a western accent? - Vianey
-What is terrain -Vianey
-Where there moms helping the babys. Emon
-How do cowboys survive -Vianey
-What do cowboys protect cows from? -Vianey
-What do the cowboys protect cows from? -Vianey
-How come cowboys get $1 a day and they risk many things? -Vianey
-How did they put up the barbed wire without herting thereselves? -Dameko
-Do cowboys EVER kill their cows (the ones they are protecting?) -Vianey
-Why didn't the slaves go to Chicago instead? -Vianey
-Why did he make the barbed wire -Kamari
-What do cowboys eat for lunch? -Vianey
-How many cowboys do they save in a day -Vianey
-Was Christopher Columbus a cowboy? -Vianey
-What is a dolphin doing liveing in the river of a swamp
-Why do the Proboscis monkey have big noses
-How old do you have to be to be a cowboy? -Vianey
-Why did they moved the hands? -Zion
-Do cowboys have uniforms? -Vianey
-Why is the woodchuck having these dreams -Malik
-Why is cowboys walking were those thinks are. -Emon
-What is carnige? -Vianey
-Is cattle safer in texas than mexico? -Vianey
-Did cowboys live in trains -Vianey
-I want to ask you did the people's was working hard Because if I was wroking on the trains it will take a long time. tremayne
-Why didn't they build cars to so it can be faster.
-how long did it take to build a city
-I wonder why the cowboys was going to fast? Kashira
-Why did he have fire in his hand
-Why do they sometimes make noise on the horse? -Anyah
-If they had barked wire how could we still have beef? -Malik
-Why did they try to heart they cowboys? -Kim
-Why is he selling clocks? and geting mony.
-do they eat I mean cowboys? Emon
-why did a lot of cowboys kill the cows -Kim
-Why do the cowboy keep on saying woohoo? -Kim
-why do they keep shooting? -Kim
-why is he selling watchs. -Kim
-Why is cowboys being mean to the farmers? -Kim
-Why are they killing there own kind and other people.
-Did the railroad destroy habitats? -Vianey
-Can you get diseased by nitroglycerin? -Vianey
-What is a railroad salary? -Vianey
-wasn't that last town  a divisional station? -Vianey
-What are locomarkets? -Vianey
-Don't the cowboys eat beef? -Vianey
-Why did he want the cows to go away instead of killing them and eating them? -Vianey
-Demarrion wrote a question but it was illegible


-I learned that a rover is a robot on wheels.  -Zion
-Cowboys learned to shoot guns by learning by themself. -Anyah
-I learned that when you dig holes in vocanoes lave comes out. -Zion
-I know that cowboys have every thing they need. -Zion
-I know that they are listing so they can cach it. -Emon
-I know how the painting on the ceiling look.  Because I found it in the dictionary. -Kim
-I learned that you have to do alot to publising. -Kimmy Jones
-A lot of cowboys were Native Americans. -Donnell


So, it was definitely time consuming to transcribe all those post-its, but at the same time it was enlightening and amusing at times.  It gave me a nice window into how my students think, what they wonder about, who is questioning a lot, etc.

Vianey was a very prolific questioner, she is also the highest academic performer in the class.  I wonder how strong the correlation is between academic performance and inquisitiveness?  In Sir Francis Bacon's words: "He who questions much, does and discusses much, shall learn much."

As I transcribed the questions I noticed that I had a range of responses: amusement, bemusement, embarrassment, excitement, admiration, etc.  I want to have more moments of astonishment and admiration when I read students' questions.  In other words, I want my students to ask more good questions.
My question: what makes a good question?
-it's not necessarily a question that falls into a higher level of thinking according to Bloom's taxonomy.  For example, there were a lot of analyzing questions like Kim's question: "why is he selling watches?" that don't really take you to anywhere that's intellectually interesting or surprising.  So a good question needs to require an answer that is not obvious, it needs to have a level of abstraction, application, analysis, creation, or comprehension, that pushes thinking.  That being said, what's to say that Kim's question isn't a good one for her?  It may push her thinking to comprehend concepts about the importance of keeping time for farmers and train employees in the 19th century.
-topical/relevant to topics that we're exploring
-builds on prior knowledge to heighten the complexity of the question (Vianey's question on habitats, divisional stations, etc.)
-uses high level vocabulary

These characteristics are consistent with what cognitive scientists believe make up "communities of practice".  "Cognitive scientists define inquiry as the process of accessing, building, extending, and using knowledge consistent with what is thought and known in a discipline." (Engaging Readers and Writers with Inquiry by Jeffrey Willhelm pg. 11)  Said another way: "Inquiry inducts students into a community of practice; they come to think and act more like people who work with the disciplines of math, science, social science, ethics, literature, philosophy, government." (pg. 24)

Questions from KWL Chart

From Oct. 5 (forgot to post)

This is a chart I laminated and keep in the back of the room.  I'm encouraging students to post any questions that come to them during any part of the day.  Here are the first batch:

- Why does Melvin want to get George and Harold?
- Did people live in these citys and Montana whe the train was buit?
- Why do the Union Pacific kill the Bison just so the indons go away?  by Cyrus
- Dear, Mr. Welch  How did thay get the chine men thare if thay can't spek Chines.
- How big was the first transcontinental railroad?  Donnell
- Is there a head of all the railroad companies -Vianey

There was also one post-it in the learned section:
- I learned that the Indians ate buffalo.  Darvell