Fostering Critical Thinking via Inquiry

Teacher Reflection

• Quickly skim through Costa’s Levels of Inquiry and take a moment to think critically about your own teaching practices over the past year.

• Journal your answers to the following questions on some paper:– What level of questions do you ask your students?– When a student asks a question what do you do?

Teacher Reflection

• What is your definition of “Inquiry”? You can use prose, or just bullets, if you like.

• Short Share out.

Which Translation is correct?

• Ah petimetre que polluelo está totalmente caliente

• oh amigo esa chica es totalmente caliente• ah el ciudadano que el pollito está totalmente

caliente

What makes this assessment correct?

ART F.ART

What Makes this Correct?

Better questions:

• What is the author’s purpose?• What is the son thinking?• What is this political cartoon trying

to tell us• Where is Tehran?• What happened before, during this

cartoon, and what will happen after?

• What do Vietnam, Baghdad, and Tehran

• Would you see this cartoon during WWII?

Who Wins?

Quick (and silent) Write:

• Was this Inquiry?

• What indicated that it was, or was not inquiry?

• What kinds of questions were involved?

Should you adjust your definition of “Inquiry”?

• Think/pair/share

HOW TO KILL INQUIRY

TECHNIQUE #1

Hello Students. Our project will be to build a wooden

birdhouse. Tell me what you know about the task.

We need to make the birdhouse out of

wood!

We should make it the size of birds!

Ok. Now….what do you need to know in order to complete

the project?

We need to know what kind of wood

works best!

We need to know what kinds of birds live

around here!

Ok. What are your next steps?

Go to the wood shop and get some wood!

Go outside and observe what kind of

birds there are!

Got it. So your next steps are:

1. Research different designs of birdhouses

2. Determine which birds live around here.

3. Go get some wood4. Start building the

birdhouse.

Get started on step 1 now.

WHAT HAPPENED?…and why?

TECHNIQUE #2How to Kill Inquiry

Ok Class, who were the different sides

of the civil war?

The Union! The Confederates!

Alright. Now…who was the president at the time of the Civil

War?

Lincoln! Lincoln!

Some have said that the Civil War was

not about Slavery. Please explain this.

Uh…. Wasn’t it about states…uh…

…..States Rights! Yeah, you’re right! Many people believed the Civil War to be

much more about states’ rights, and their ability to

make their own laws. Others have said that the

Civil War was a repudiation of the implicit caste system perpetuated by the gentry

of both England, and by extension, the South.

WHAT HAPPENED?…and why?

TECHNIQUE #3How To Kill Inquiry

Hey, take a look through the window; there’s a

ladderback woodpecker making a hole in the bark in that tree out there. Why do you think the bird is doing

that?

To make a house! To get bugs!

Hmmm…let’s explore either of those possibilities.

Pull out your computers to research ladderback

woodpeckers.

WHAT HAPPENED?…and why?

NOW…WHAT CAN YOU DO TO BUILD INQUIRY AT YOUR SCHOOL?

Guided Research Activity

• PICK A FACT.– Cells are the smallest parts of living organisms.– The Declaration of Independence was adopted on

July 4, 1776.• Have each team use the statement as a

springboard to generate questions.• Students should keep a record of questions

they generate.

TIPS for improving K/NTK lists

• Individual accountability is important.– Individual: Create Notecard with 3 K and 3 NTK– Team: Two Additional NTK’s– Whole Class: Anybody should be able to

contribute. • Categorize.– Procedure/Skills VS. Content Questions

TIPS for improving K/NTK lists

• Have students identify NTK answered through particular scaffolding activity.

• Try asking students mid project, “What do you know now?”, and let questions emerge.

Tips for fostering inquiry in Workshops

• Can you turn your didactics into questions?• Prepare your questions ahead of time. • Don’t be afraid to ask the hard questions first.• Incorporate questions into workshop debriefs

(what are two questions I answered today? OR what are two questions you still have?)

Tips

• The Driving Question of a project can foster a lot of inquiry, especially if it is posed frequently throughout the project, and students are held accountable for…– …adding to their previous answer each time– …asking their own related questions

Tips

• Prompts in rubrics can help.

• “Group Generates their own questions over the course of the project, and describe how they answered those questions.”

Tips

• What if the driving question is not evident at first?

• How can we as citizens, make recommendations to congress about our understanding of and feeling about GMOs, so that we ensure a safe food supply?

• Students then must come up with larger “philosophical” driving question.

Tips

• Responding positively or negatively to student comments within class discussion can actually be problematic. If students are given the opportunity to answer each others’ questions, you will get more questions, and more discussion.

• In a science course, those questions can be answered via data-taking too.

Tips

• Questioning strategies matter. See the project briefcase for “Other inquiry resources”

• There are lots of resources about the kinds of questions that invoke different levels of thinking.