Engaging Students Through Inquiry-oriented Learning and Technology


Book Description

This book guides the reader through the process of identifying objectives, big idea questions, finding resources, and building a web-based inquiry lesson that will include a webquest, web inquiry, and a telecollaborative activity_all in a non-threatening format. Teachers can easily progress through this book and begin practicing building inquiry-oriented activities in a classroom to better meet the needs of their students.




Authentic Learning in the Digital Age


Book Description

How can you create an authentic learning environment—one where students ask questions, do research, and explore subjects that fascinate them—in today’s standards-driven atmosphere? Author Larissa Pahomov offers insightful answers based on her experience as a classroom teacher at the Science Leadership Academy—a public high school in Philadelphia that offers a rigorous college-prep curriculum and boasts a 99 percent graduation rate. Pahomov outlines a framework for learning structured around five core values: inquiry, research collaboration, presentation and reflection. For each value, she presents: * A detailed description of how the value can transform classroom practice and how a “digital connection” can enhance its application. * A step-by-step outline for how to implement the value, with examples from teachers in all subject areas. * Solutions to possible challenges and roadblocks that teachers may experience. * Suggestions for how to expand the value beyond the classroom to schoolwide practice.* Anecdotes from students, offering their perspectives on how they experienced the value in the classroom and after graduation. The framework is a guide, not a prescription, and middle and high school teachers—individually or as a team—can use it to structure whatever content and skills their current school or district requires. The book also includes suggestions for how to integrate technology into inquiry-based education, but the principles and approaches it describes can be applied successfully even in places without abundant technology. Both practical and inspiring, Authentic Learning in the Digital Age is an indispensable handbook for reinvigorating teaching and learning in a new era.




The Knowledge Gap


Book Description

The untold story of the root cause of America's education crisis--and the seemingly endless cycle of multigenerational poverty. It was only after years within the education reform movement that Natalie Wexler stumbled across a hidden explanation for our country's frustrating lack of progress when it comes to providing every child with a quality education. The problem wasn't one of the usual scapegoats: lazy teachers, shoddy facilities, lack of accountability. It was something no one was talking about: the elementary school curriculum's intense focus on decontextualized reading comprehension "skills" at the expense of actual knowledge. In the tradition of Dale Russakoff's The Prize and Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars, Wexler brings together history, research, and compelling characters to pull back the curtain on this fundamental flaw in our education system--one that fellow reformers, journalists, and policymakers have long overlooked, and of which the general public, including many parents, remains unaware. But The Knowledge Gap isn't just a story of what schools have gotten so wrong--it also follows innovative educators who are in the process of shedding their deeply ingrained habits, and describes the rewards that have come along: students who are not only excited to learn but are also acquiring the knowledge and vocabulary that will enable them to succeed. If we truly want to fix our education system and unlock the potential of our neediest children, we have no choice but to pay attention.




Inquiry-based English Instruction


Book Description

This valuable resource offers an alternative framework for middle and secondary school English instruction. The authors provide concrete strategies for engaging students in critical inquiry projects about the social worlds they inhabit or about those portrayed in literature and the media, their peer, school, family, romance, community, workplace, and virtual worlds. You will find numerous examples of middle and high school students using various literacy tools (language, genres, narratives, signs, multimedia, and drama) to study, represent, critique, and transform these worlds. Rather than simply studying about literacy practices, this new framework shows how students learn best through active participation driven by a need to critically examine and promote changes in their social worlds.




Conducting Authentic Historical Inquiry


Book Description

"The authors examine how social studies teachers can use web 2.0 tools to augment instruction in their classrooms, using a pedagogical framework SOURCES to enable students to engage in historical inquiry with primary sources in an informed and scaffolded fashion. SOURCES is an acronym to identify the steps ofhistorical inquiry: Scrutinizing the fundamental sources; organizing thoughts; understanding the context; reading between the lines; corroborating and refuting; establishing a plausible narrative; summarizing final thoughts. The use of Web 2.0 tools, such as social networks and blogs, are omnipresent among students, and their integration into the learning experience is intended to increase motivation, collaboration, and visualization of student work, as well as "providing opportunities and venues for sharing work and solutions globally." Per the authors, "this book will provide a detailed collection and rationale for the implementation of a wide array of emerging technological applications into the teaching and learning process, their role in supporting each phase of the SOURCES pedagogical framework, and varied examples of the merging of technological and pedagogical applications in the social studies classroom""--




21st Century Skills Development Through Inquiry-Based Learning


Book Description

This book presents innovative instructional interventions designed to support inquiry project-based learning as an approach to equip students with 21st century skills. Instructional techniques include collaborative team-based teaching, social constructivist game design and game play, and productive uses of social media such as wikis and other online communication affordances. The book will be of interest to researchers seeking a summary of recent empirical studies in the inquiry project-based learning domain that employ new technologies as constructive media for student synthesis and creation. The book also bridges the gap between empirical works and a range of national- and international-level educational standards frameworks such as the P21, the OECD framework, AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner, and the Common Core State Standards in the US. Of particular interest to education practitioners, the book offers detailed descriptions of inquiry project-based learning interventions that can be directly reproduced in today's schools. Further, the book provides research-driven guidelines for the evaluation of student inquiry project-based learning. Lastly, it offers education policymakers insight into establishing anchors and spaces for applying inquiry project-based learning opportunities for youth today in the context of existing and current education reform efforts. The aim of this book is to support education leaders', practitioners' and researchers' efforts in advancing inspiring and motivating student learning through transformative social constructivist inquiry-based knowledge-building with information technologies. We propose that preparing students with inquiry mindsets and dispositions can promote greater agency, critical thinking and resourcefulness, qualities needed for addressing the complex societal challenges they may face.




Using Inquiry in the Classroom


Book Description

This book serves as an excellent primer for teachers on the value of inquiry learning as a teaching modality. Teresa Coffman clarifies the importance of inquiry learning under the umbrella of self-directed knowledge construction. Using Inquiry in the Classroom offers teachers the theoretical underpinnings of inquiry learning, as well as practical takeaways of activities that can be put to immediate use in the classroom. - Back cover.




Inquiry-Based Learning for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Programs


Book Description

This volume covers the many issues and concepts of how IBL can be applied to STEM programs and serves as a conceptual and practical resource and guide for educators and offers practical examples of IBL in action and diverse strategies on how to implement IBL in different contexts.




Powerful Learning


Book Description

In Powerful Learning, Linda Darling-Hammond and an impressive list of co-authors offer a clear, comprehensive, and engaging exploration of the most effective classroom practices. They review, in practical terms, teaching strategies that generate meaningful K–2 student understanding, and occur both within the classroom walls and beyond. The book includes rich stories, as well as online videos of innovative classrooms and schools, that show how students who are taught well are able to think critically, employ flexible problem-solving, and apply learned skills and knowledge to new situations.




Thinking Through Project-Based Learning


Book Description

Everything you need to know to lead effective and engaging project-based learning! Are you eager to try out project-based learning, but don't know where to start? How do you ensure that classroom projects help students develop critical thinking skills and meet rigorous standards? Find the answers in this step-by-step guide, written by authors who are both experienced teachers and project-based learning experts. Thinking Through Projects shows you how to create a more interactive classroom environment where students engage, learn, and achieve. Teachers will find: A reader-friendly overview of project-based learning that includes current findings on brain development and connections with Common Core standards, Numerous how-to's and sample projects for every K-12 grade level, Strategies for integrating project learning into all main subject areas, across disciplines, and with current technology and social media and Ways to involve the community through student field research, special guests, and ideas for showcasing student work. Whether you are new to project-based learning or ready to strengthen your existing classroom projects, you'll find a full suite of strategies and tools in this essential book.




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