Student Inquiry Project Self Assessment

1. How did completing this integrated study help you think in greater depth about planning for effective technology integration in a core subject? In planning this project, and completing a " curriculum mind map", it was essential for me to become familiar with many different POS` in addition to Science, including the ICT, Fine Arts, and ELA. After reading through each of them, I began to make some connections between the respective curricula. After further investigation, many more links became apparent. I think that physically mapping out these links helped me to realize how inter-connected they all were. In my next inquiry design, the background knowledge (especially of the ICT POS) I have gained through this assignment will help me to be even more intentional in my design, and include even more meaningful integration of different disciplines.

2. How did you ensure that technology was an integral part of the study and not just an add-on or an electronic way of doing exactly what could be done without technology at all? I think that the final culminating web page for Parks Canada strongly linked technology into our project, and I believe that students could not complete the study without meaningful experiences with technology. Our group talked about the Inquiry Rubric as we designed our project. We really concentrated on the Authenticity aspect and intentionally designed the project so that ``The inquiry study originates with an issue, problem, question or exploration that provides opportunities to create or produce something that contributes to the worlds knowledge``. The intent behind having the students create a web page was to ensure that they would have a medium to share their information with others beyond just the classroom, and truly contribute to the larger communities knowledge of their chosen ecosystem and the issues surrounding it.

3. How did completing this integrated study help you meet additional personal/professional goals for the seminar? One of my main goals for this seminar was to understand what inquiry actually was, and how I could effectively implement it in my classroom. Through the completion of the various IO challenges I began to understand what inquiry was, and more importantly what it wasn’t. After these challenges, getting to actually create a unit plan helped solidify my own understanding of inquiry and technology. My ability to create what I feel is a successful inquiry project, has help increased my self-confidence because I know I CAN design meaningful projects for my students.

4. What are you learning about the possibilities and pitfalls of planning with others as you learn new things? I had a very positive experience when collaborating with my group. This may be due to the fact that we are all like minded with previous education in the Sciences. In the future, I hope to work with others who possess different strengths and interests—I think this will ensure great cross-curricular opportunities, and perhaps will also introduce new struggles! I have recently been invited into many of my peers IO projects, which I think is awesome. The MT program, and especially this class has continually reinforced the importance of collaboration in teaching. I think collaboration and peer review challenge me to see multiple perspectives, and view learning in new and different ways.

5. In what ways might you use this integrated study with your own student next year if the opportunity arose? I feel that this study introduced important ideas and issues that could be addressed from K-12, as well as even perhaps in higher education. The “big idea” of “What happens when nature fights back” is what allows for the diverse use of this unit, as I feel it could touch on many different curricula. I also realize however (and it was suggested in our peer review) that we need to break this unit into smaller chunks, as it is so broad. If I do not use this specific unit next year, I know I will continually use and build on the understanding of designing inquiry—if not the actual inquiry project itself.