INSTRUCTIONAL PROCEDURES
Education 230
Mrs. N. AL HASSAN
February 1998
INQUIRY
MODEL + LESSON PLAN
1) Introduction
2) We have to Teach Students to …
3) New Classroom Culture
4) Curriculum Inquiry Cycle
5) Insights into Inquiry-Based Teaching
6) Inquiry
7) The Suchman Inquiry Technique
8) Lesson Plan: Suchman INQUIRY Model
9) Lesson Planning Procedures
10) Daily Lesson Plan Format
INTRODUCTION
As the stream of time takes us inexorably toward a
new century, many people are beginning to question the direction the stream is
taking us. Voices, both inside education and outside it, are heard demanding
more efficient "teacher production."
There is great emphasis nowadays on interactive,
cooperative and collaborative learning in which we emphasize each person's
voice , create an atmosphere of democracy where all opinions are heard , all
perspectives are valued , and finally where we build an atmosphere of
community, a classroom community .
Parents as well as teachers would like to see
collaboration as the core of the curriculum. In fact, it's not just
collaboration as core, it's collaborative inquiry which includes
problem-solving activities that promote negotiation of solutions in group
situations and whose focus should be less on arriving at a correct solution
than on generating different viable solutions.
It seems that collaborative inquiry is being
implemented in a variety of creative ways and it has been embraced as an
important position to take as we move toward the 21st Century.
By using collaborative inquiry our goal is to make
an impact on the social structure and culture of our country , since we educate
critical, pro-active, and reflective agents of change.
Inquiry-based
learning , hands-on experimenting , solving real problems and encouraging
critical thinking are becoming important in succeeding in the work world ;
Finally we can say that Consideration, creativity,
responsibility, participation, all these things seem to become involved in the
coming century , as does the suggestion of stretching the student's experience
beyond individual knowing to a kind of collaborative wisdom.
We Have to
Teach Students to
* Think critically and logically to make
relationships between evidence and explanations
* Develop descriptions, explanations, predictions
and models using evidence
* Revise explanations based on logic and evidence
* Communicate and defend explanations and procedures
* Identify questions that can be pursued through
investigation
* Use appropriate tools, techniques, and
technologies to analyze data
* Design and conduct investigations
* Recognize and analyze alternatives, explanations
and predictions
SO our aim is
to encourage a number of important dispositions in students ; we want them to
* Become collaborative learners, capable of working
together to solve problems.
* Learn critical thinking skills, such as problem
identification.
* Apply knowledge and connect to prior learning.
* Realize the relevance of their learning
experiences.
* Learn to assume responsibility for their own
learning.
…so that, over
time, they become more self-directed learners.
New Classroom Culture
The classroom is the workplace.
The process
of learning--not just what we learn--is important.
The focus of our work is upon a long-term design project.
Curriculum incorporates content, processes, and products.
Assessments evaluate students’ new understandings
We celebrate ourselves in our work, our
classroom, and our community.
The teacher is the mentor and the facilitator
of learning.
The student is a novice, learning to be an expert.
Interactivity, such as cooperative and collaborative learning is essential.
CURRICULUM INQUIRY CYCLE
"It is teachers who, in the end, will change the world of the classroom by understanding it."
Assumptions
Underlying the Curriculum Inquiry Cycle:
1.
Teachers
are knowledgeable professionals.
2.
Planning
curriculum is the professional responsibility of teachers.
3.
Curriculum
inquiry is a vehicle for professional growth.
4.
Curriculum
inquiry leads to improved learning and teaching.
5.
Teachers
learn by building on current practice.
6.
Teachers
need to share professional expertise.
7.
Curriculum
planning is a team effort.
8.
Curriculum
Inquiry strengthens close connections among curriculum, instruction and
assessment.
9.
Curriculum
planning is a recursive process.
10.
The
classroom is the fundamental unit of school change.
11.
Administrative
support is essential for effective curricular and instructional change.
Curriculum inquiry improves the core of educational
practice, since it involves teachers in determining the critical experiences
necessary to engage students in meeting challenging standards.
This is more than an instructional innovation.
Through inquiry, teachers plan learning environments that provide and build on
essential conditions for student learning. This process helps teachers develop
and articulate local standards which guide their teaching in the context of
broad state and national reform priorities. It addresses such fundamental questions as:
What knowledge is crucial?
What do we understand about this knowledge?
What strategies are most powerful for fostering
student learning?
What critical experiences must occur to achieve
standards?
What forms of collaboration are necessary to provide
coherence and meaning in teaching and learning?
How do we study our classrooms and communicate our
understandings to others?
Educators participating in this ongoing
cycle of curriculum renewal should examine current curriculum practice in the schools;
clarify local needs, content and performance standards to determine how to
balance competing demands; plan critical classroom experiences to achieve
desired student goals; and conduct classroom research on the selected practices
in action, assessing progress and making needed changes.
We should all work to tailor a long-term
comprehensive curriculum change effort which utilizes this unique and valuable
process.
A major goal should be to assist teachers
and schools to create self-sustaining processes for improving curriculum and
instruction.
Critical
questions that may be addressed:
1- Examining Current Practice
What does my teaching look like?
Why do I work this way?
What does this tell me about how I think about curriculum?
Is my current practice making a difference in student learning?
2- Making Decisions
Are my practices consistent with what is known about how people learn?
Are content and performance standards reflected in my teaching practice?
Am I aware of alternative models of teaching?
3- Creating an Optimal Learning Environment
What are the dynamics of an optimal learning environment?
What learning experiences are essential?
What assessments are appropriate?
4- Expanding Teacher Knowledge through Classroom
Research
What dilemmas, questions or concerns about teaching and learning do I
want to explore?
How can I collaborate more with colleagues?
How will I share my research?
Insights into Inquiry-Based Teaching
The worlds of inquiry, curiosity, and
wonder should be alive in classrooms everywhere.
It is a world where children's minds come alive with
possibilities and where students learn through experience, investigation, and
hands-on activities that engage their minds and foster their interest.
And inquiry-based teaching is a perfect
complement to a child's natural curiosity about the world and how it works.
"Whether it is the elementary student's wonder
that is prompted by a story about hibernating animals, the middle school
student's predictions about the relationship between circumference and diameter
that arise from an exploration of different-sized spheres, or the high school
student's questions that are provoked by a local environmental issue, students
become actively engaged in the learning process when given the opportunity to
hypothesize and investigate .
Inquiry is central to both mathematics and science.
For example, inquiry-oriented instruction in science engages students in the
investigative nature of the world around
them, and inquiry-based strategies involve
activities and skills that focus on the active search for knowledge or understanding.
And mathematics is much more than arithmetic and algorithms. Instead, it
involves data, measurements, and recognition of patterns.
An
inquiry-based classroom recognizes the diverse needs of students and
employs the research-based strategies that help to keep all students engaged in
learning.
It is a community of inquiry where students and
teachers share responsibility for learning, and where they collaborate on
constructing new knowledge.
"Students have significant input into just about
every aspect of their learning—how their classroom is set up, how time is
structured, which resources are used, which topics are explored, how
investigations will proceed, and how findings are reported . No longer are
teachers the sole purveyors of knowledge and students passive receptacles.
Strategies used by exemplary mathematics
and science teachers ensure that activities are set up to allow students to be
physically and mentally involved in the academic subjects. Activities are based on the use of materials
to investigate questions and solve problems. Evidence is mounting that
indicates that inquiry-based instruction improves student attitude and
achievement, facilitates student understanding, fosters critical thinking
skills, and facilitates mathematical discovery.
Inquiry Strategies for Science and
Mathematics Learning also provide guidelines for creating an inquiry-based
classroom that provides students with the time, space, resources, and safety
necessary for learning.
An inquiry-based
classroom:
Engages students in designing the learning
environment.
Integrates science laboratories into the regular
class day.
Uses inquiry in the mathematics classroom.
Employs management strategies to facilitate inquiry.
Reflects the nature of inquiry by displaying and
demanding respect for diverse ideas, abilities, and experiences; modeling and
emphasizing the skills, attitudes, and values of scientific inquiry: wonder,
curiosity, and respect toward nature; enables students to have a
significant voice in decisions about the content and context of their work; and
nurtures collaboration among students
We use INQUIRY to investigate problems.
Our first entry into the effort is to recognize a problem.
There after we must construct our design as to how we are going to attack the
problem and attempt to solve it.
We may not solve the problem within the given time
frame and what we do may raise other associated problems. That is
okay. Any good research does the same.
Basic
structure of inquiry:
WHAT
DO WE KNOW?
WHAT
DO WE NEED TO KNOW?
HOW
CAN WE FIND IT OUT?
The steps to
follow are:
This may include:
The Suchman Inquiry Technique
In the classroom, occasions frequently arise in
which students come across unusual phenomena.
Each of these occasions, and many others like them,
provide the teacher with rich opportunities to encourage students to carefully
analyze the situation and to hypothesize and test explanations. These
situations make it difficult for students to remain indifferent - they demand
explanations and want to know why.
Robert Suchman developed a strategy,
similar to the game "twenty questions", to teach students a process
for investigating and explaining unexpected and surprising events.
Overview of
the strategy:
A. Students are confronted with a puzzling situation.
It is important that the explanation of the
event should be based on ideas with which the students already have some
familiarity - the explanation of the situation should be discoverable.
B. Students form hypotheses (possible solutions)
The number of hypotheses should be small enough so that
students can see to which hypothesis their data relate .
C. Students ask the teacher questions: Data gathering
These must be of a form which can be answered by a "yes"
or a "no". For example, a student may
not ask, "What is inside the radiometer?" but may ask, "Is there air inside the
radiometer?"
If a question isn’t answerable by “yes” or “no” ,
the students are asked to rephrase it
.
Moreover, the questions must be worded so that the
answer could be obtained through observation alone.
The strategy eliminates all open ended
questions and forces students to focus
their ideas and to develop questions which are, in effect, limited
hypotheses.
With practice, students should be encouraged to
structure their inquiry so that they ask questions which analyze the situation
they have observed - trying to find out what things are made of , what actually
happened , before they consider relationships between the variables involved in
the situation.
It is
important that students learn to distinguish between:
* Questions
which are fact gathering, and
* Questions
which experiment with the relationships between the variables involved in the
situation.
Questions such as:
"Is the strip made of metal?"
"Is there a vacuum inside the radiometer?"
help to clarify the situation which has
been observed or described, whereas questions such as:
"If the soldiers had run rather than marched would the bridge still
have collapsed?"
seek to explore the relationships between
some of the variables involved in their situations.
C. Assessing hypotheses
It is
important that in this stage, the teacher and the students remember that even
after lengthy questioning, a number of satisfactory explanations may be
possible and that students should
be encouraged to explore a range of alternative
hypotheses.
D.
Generalizations + Reflection and analysis of the
process.
The final stage of the strategy involves
students examining the process they have worked through - considering the
stages of the process and the effectiveness of the different questions which
have been asked.
Finally ,
There should
not be too much emphasis on "getting the right answer" - rather
students should be encouraged to see that there are a number of satisfactory
explanations in many situations.
Lesson Plan:
Suchman Inquiry Model
1- Planning the Lesson :
1.1 Goals
a - Content :
Students will recognize
the need for applying appropriate essay rules in their writing .
b - Process :
Students will
form hypotheses.
They will gather data: by asking questions which require only ‘yes’ or
‘no’ answers ( based on
observation only , i.e. not conclusion )
They will assess hypotheses based on data.
They will reach a conclusion .
1.2 Problem
Sally and Cynthia are two
students in Mrs. Salem’s 9th grade English class. They each wrote an
essay of about 250 words on “Passive Resistance”. Both had good ideas and
expressed themselves accurately (Grammar and vocabulary wise).
However, Cynthia received an
“A” while Sally got a “C” ; Why should there have been such a big difference
between their grades ?
1.3 Prerequisite Knowledge
Rules of Paragraph Writing.
2 - Implementing the Lesson
[ I would like first to mention a few things :
Subject = English as a Third Language
Topic = Essay Writing
Grade Level = 9
Time Required = 50 minutes
Number of students = 18 ]
2.1 Presenting
the problem
- “Good morning everyone,
how are you today? Are you ready to start the lesson?”
- “Yes miss!”Said the
students all together.
- “ Excellent! Then let’s
start ……
As you recall, we have been
studying the rules of paragraph writing for a while now; today I would like to
see if you can apply our background in solving a problem .
So, the goal for today’s
lesson is to examine and solve the following problem.
## The teacher displays the
following information to her class on an overhead. ##
“Sally and Cynthia are two students in Mrs. Salem’s 9th
grade English class. They each wrote an essay of about 250 words on “Passive
Resistance”. Both had good ideas and expressed themselves accurately. However,
Cynthia received an “A” while Sally got a “C” ; Why should there have been such
a big difference between their grades ?
2.2 Forming Hypotheses
So , let me remind you a
little bit of the way this lesson should be conducted .
We have a problem here and
we are trying to solve it . This means you have to start offering what ?
-“Tentative solutions , miss
,” said Ralph proudly .
- Excellent , Ralph , so…
- “I know why Sally had a
bad grade,” said Judith shyly .
- “Why , Judith ?”
- “Because maybe she didn’t
draw an outline for the essay before she wrote it .”
- “ Good , Judith , and why
do you think an outline is useful ?”
- “Because it helps us to
have a good organization,” rushed Mark.
- “We must have an
Introduction , a Body and a Conclusion ,” added Carol .
- “Good everyone , then this
is our first hypothesis ; let me write it on the chalkboard .” ( And she writes
: No Outline )
“Any other hypotheses ?
- “There might have been no
unity and coherence in her paragraphs,” answered Marcel .
- “Excellent Marcel , so
this is our second hypothesis . ( And she writes it on the board )
- “Miss, what about the
topic sentence that needs supporting sentences and then a concluding sentence
?” asked Hanady hesitantly .
- “Good point , Hanady , so
what would you like me to write on the board ?”
- “Maybe that she didn’t
follow the rules of paragraph writing ?”
- “O.K. Hanady , come and
write it on the board .”
2.3 Gathering Data
- “So we have three hypotheses
now , who knows what the next step will be ?”
- “We have to observe and
gather data ,” said Eric .
- “But what are we going to
observe ? We have no facts !” exclaimed a number of students in unison .
- “Eric has a point , but
it’s just that instead of really observing , we’ll imagine we had the two
essays in front of us , and the way we’ll make our observations is for you to
ask me questions , and your questions , together with my responses , will give
you your data .
Now , do you know anything about
these questions you’ll ask ?”
- “But if you answer our
questions you will be solving the problem yourself !” said Marcel .
- “Good remark , Marcel , so
, to avoid that , what is the kind of questions you will be allowed to ask ?”
- “I don’t really know , but
you shouldn’t give us conclusions ,” answered Marcel .
- “Aren’t they ‘yes’ or ‘no’
questions ?” asked Melissa .
- “That’s it , Melissa ,
excellent .
“Now that we know the kind
of questions you have to ask , let’s go back to our hypotheses and begin
gathering some data to try and determine what to accept , modify or reject .
## Then they all studied the
statements on the board and did some thinking for a few seconds .##
- “ Did Sally have an
introduction , a body and a conclusion in her essay ?” asked Hanady .
- “Yes , she did ,” answered
the teacher.
## Then she wrote Hanady’s
question on the board and put Y next to it ##
- “Are there unity and
coherence in her paragraphs? Asked Tarek
- “Is it appropriate for me
to answer this question, Tarek ?”
- “It requires a conclusion,
how can you answer it , then ?” said Tania .
- “O.K. Tarek , then you
need to reword it to make it observable .”
- “Did she use transition
words to link her paragraphs?” tried Tarek .
- “No she didn’t.”
## Then the teacher wrote Tarek’s
question on the board with an N next to it. ##
- “Was there one idea only
in each paragraph?” asked Sonia.
- “No.”
## And again the teacher
wrote that on the board. ##
- “What about Cynthia’s
essay, was there one idea in each paragraph?” asked Sonia.
- “Yes.”
- “And did she use
transition words?”
- “Yes.”
## The teacher wrote the
questions on the board with their answers. ##
- “Did Cynthia have an
introduction, a body and a conclusion?”
- “Yes, she did .”
2.4 Assessing Hypotheses
- “O.K., class, now let’s
compare what we have with our hypotheses. What can we conclude?”
- “Our first hypothesis is
wrong miss!” exclaimed a few students all together.
- “Hey there, be careful,
can we ever say our hypothesis is wrong?”
- “We don’t use the idea of
right or wrong, because when we gave it we didn’t know anything about the facts
we know now ,” answered July proudly .
- “We just reject the
hypothesis,” said Aileen.
- “Good Aileen, because the
evidence we have seems to detract from the hypothesis.
- “Why do you want to reject
the first hypothesis?”
- “Because she must have
drawn an outline since she had an introduction, a body and a conclusion; her
essay was well organized,” said Caline.
- “What about our second
hypothesis?"
- “This one must be correct,
because if we compare to two essays, we notice that in Cynthia’s there were
unity and coherence while in Sally’s there weren’t any,” said Hady.
- “Why don’t we rephrase our
last two hypotheses to put them both in one since they are almost the same?”
said Sonia.
- “How is that?”
- “Yes, she’s right; if we
have in each paragraph one topic sentence only it means we have unity,”
rejoined Hady.
- “What about coherence?”
- “We have to find a way to
include it too,” Marcel said.
2.5 Closure
- “O.K., then let’s have
another look at the two hypotheses and at the questions and answers we have.
What can we deduce?”
- “It has something to do
with following the paragraph rules every time we write something to
explain,”said Manal.
- “Then if we follow the
paragraph or essay rules appropriately we will have good marks,” said Tarek.
- “Provided that your ideas
and language are good,” rejoined the teacher. “ So, what will our conclusion
be?”
- “Every time we have to
write an essay we have to follow its rules, mainly those of unity, coherence
and organization,” said Marcel.
- “Excellent, Marcel, then
we can say now that we have reached the goals of this lesson. I’m so proud of
the way you’ve all reasoned.”
3 - Assessing Student Learning:
Individual Test: Case Study
“ When the Japanese go on
strike their production figures go up while when the Americans go on strike
their production figures go down. Why should there be such a relevant
difference between the two?”
You have to provide
tentative hypotheses and data-gathering questions.
LESSON PLANNING PROCEDURES
Time - we only have so much of it. The effective
teacher cannot create a single extra second of the day - any more than anyone
can. But the effective teacher certainly controls the way time is used.
Effective teachers systematically and carefully plan
for productive use of instructional time.
One of the primary roles that we perform as a
teacher is that of designer and implementor of instruction.
Teachers at every level prepare plans that aid in the
organization and delivery of their daily lessons. These plans vary widely in
the style and degree of specificity.
Some instructors prefer to construct elaborate,
detailed and impeccably typed outlines; others rely on the briefest of notes
handwritten on scratch-pads or on the backs of discarded envelopes.
Regardless of the format, all teachers need to make
wise decisions about the strategies and methods they will employ to help
students move systematically toward learner goals.
Teachers need more than a vague, or even a precise,
notion of educational goals and objectives to be able to sequence these
objectives or to be proficient in the skills and knowledge of a particular
discipline.
The effective teacher also needs to develop a plan
to provide direction toward the attainment of the selected objectives.
The more
organized a teacher is, the more effective the teaching, and thus the learning,
is .
Writing daily lesson plans is a large part in being
organized.
Planning and classroom delivery innovations usually
come once we are in the classroom with our own set of learners, have developed
our own instructional resources, and have experimented with various strategies.
Although fundamental lesson-planning elements tend
to remain stable, their basic formula is always modified to suit the individual
teacher's lesson preparation or style of presentation.
The lesson plan is a dreaded part of instructions
that most teachers detest. It nevertheless provides a guide for managing the
learning environment and is essential if a substitute teacher is to be
effective and efficient.
Three stages
of lesson planning follow:
Stage 1: Pre-Lesson Preparation
1.Goals
2.Content
3.Student entry level
Stage 2: Lesson Planning and Implementation
1.Unit title
2.Instructional goals
3.Objectives
4.Rationale
5.Content
6.Instructional procedures
7.Evaluation procedures
8.Materials
Stage 3: Post-Lesson Activities
1.Lesson evaluation and revision
Lesson planning involves much more than making
arbitrary decisions about "what I'm going to teach today."
Many activities precede the process of designing and
implementing a lesson plan.
Similarly, the job of systematic lesson planning is
not complete until after the instructor has assessed both the learner's
attainment of the anticipated outcomes and effectiveness of the lesson in
leading learners to these outcomes.
One final word, even teachers who develop highly
structured and detailed plans rarely adhere to them in lock-step fashion.
Such rigidity would probably hinder, rather than
help, the teaching learning process.
The elements of the lesson plan should be thought of
as guiding principles to be applied as aids, but not blueprints, to systematic
instruction. Precise preparation must allow for flexible delivery.
During the actual classroom interaction, the
instructor needs to make adaptations and to add artistry to each lesson plan
and classroom delivery.
DAILY LESSON PLAN FORMAT
Teacher_____________________________________________________________
Course Title
________________________________________________________
1. Unit________________________________________________________________
2. Instructional goal (outcome that students should achieve on completion of the total unit
of instruction)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.
Performance objectives (skill defined as
behavioral objective-action verb that is measurable)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.
Rationale (brief justification of why we feel the students
need to learn this topic)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.
Content: (what is to be taught)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.
Instructional procedures
(a) Focusing event (something to
get the students’ attention)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(b)
Teaching
procedures (methods we shall use)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(c) Formative check (progress checks
throughout the lesson)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(d) Student Participation (how
we shall get the students to participate)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(e) Closure (how we shall end
the lesson)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.
Evaluation procedures (how we shall measure if
the material has been learned)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8. Materials and aids (what we shall need in
order to teach this lesson)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------