Planning for inquiry, concepts and choice in an online environment.
Since the start of the 2019-2020 school year, we have been collaborating to review, revise, and rewrite units of inquiry at Dresden International School. Throughout this process, our aim has been to ensure that within all units, inquiry concepts and agency are embedded. Using the model for developing conceptual units from ‘Taking the Complexity Out of Concepts’ we developed the units of inquiry.
Like many of you, we recently shifted to online learning, so the Grade 4 team was forced to rethink their upcoming unit, how we express ourselves. This collaborative blog post is the first in a series; this piece explains the process of unit planning. Future pieces will highlight student learning and engagement.
In their first few days of teaching and learning online, the team noticed that they needed to provide students with more in-depth opportunities for learning and inquiry. They were successful in planning online collaborative projects for students which allowed for in-depth inquiry and for the students to stay connected with their peers. A focus for the school’s mission is to be a collaborative, diverse learning community, so keeping collaboration at the heart of what they do is important. This unit allows for teachers to work in smaller collaborative groups to provide authentic and engaging learning opportunities for students to be self-directed and responsible for their own learning.
Whilst this is an IBPYP transdisciplinary theme and Dresden International School is an IB World School, we believe the ideas could be taken and focussed on using the IGE (Innovative Global Education) framework for planning. Below we have outlined possibilities for a unit like this that some of you may find useful.
The first thing to consider is the quality of the unit, below is the criteria we used when developing the unit.
Central Idea
People use techniques to create and produce artistic expression.
Lines of Inquiry (for those that use essential questions and/or conceptual questions, these can be made into questions)
The different techniques artists use as a form of expression
How people respond to artistic expression
Creating and producing using artistic expression
Concepts:
Artistic Expression
Response
Inquiry as Provocation
We want learners to be curious about possibilities, to see where their interests might be and to ensure an element of choice. Therefore, it is important to introduce them to possibilities and get them curious as a part of the unit.
Given the nature of the concepts this is a unit that can easily involve most subject areas. Therefore, the team decided that single subject and homeroom teachers will run mini lessons as provocations.
We encourage teachers to explore their interests to spark student curiosity and creativity.
Examples could be:
PE teacher: Ballet and Hip Hop
Music Teacher: Singing and Creating music using technology
Drama Teacher: Mime and Monologue
Art Teacher: Painting and Sculpture
Homeroom teachers: Poetry and Short Expressive Writing
The reading and writing unit of study is poetry, so all students will engage with reading and writing poetry, and a group of students could take their focus even deeper in a small group.
In working with students online, teachers will create mini lessons around each of these ideas to share with the class and will focus on these key questions:
How is this artistic expression?
What is your response to this?
Inquiry as Critical Wondering
After a week of engaging in various mini-lessons, based on their response, the learners will choose which area they want to focus on. Students will then be organized into groups with teachers taking a group each. Instead of having an art, music, drama, PE lesson per week teachers work with their interest groups.
We would suggest that as the unit is progressing teachers have a place for learners to post ongoing questions/wonderings that they may have about the unit. This will enable teachers to ensure the investigation part of the unit is being co-constructed with students, that students are contributing to the planning of the unit and the learning is connected to their needs. Tools like Padlet, Google Classroom, or FlipGrid could be used to facilitate this kind of student reflection.
Inquiry as Investigation
Once the groups are organized teachers will curate resources to assist learners with their new learning, while focussing on the skills required for artistic expression.
Where possible teachers might also reach out into the community to see if there are other experts in the chosen areas that learners could connect to. This could include a question and answer time or a mini learning experience. This provides an opportunity to extend beyond the teacher and for learners to connect to others in the community. Given the range of online learning experiences that are being provided around the world, there is great possibility with this.
As they are introduced to different ideas around their artistic expression e.g. through videos, podcasts, virtual museums, images, quotes, conferencing with teachers, learners focus on the concepts of artistic expression and response.
Artistic Expression (other questions can be used)
How was artistic expression shown? How do you know?
What elements of artistic expression were used? How do you know?
Response (other questions can be used)
What is your response to the artistic expression?
How did it make you feel?
What did you like/not like about it? Why?
You may even choose to use a graphic organizer such as the one below “Concept Collaboration Chart” that students can collaborate on as they continually unpack their understanding of the concepts.
Poetry
As learners are learning the skills and artistic elements of their chosen interest, they are also involved in looking at poetry. Teachers will choose different poems providing mini lessons on different poems, and give learners choice over the poems they may like to look at.
Learners respond to and write poems as a part of the unit.
Learners choose a poem and using their artistic choice or another artistic choice, they respond to the poem through that art form. This can be done in an ongoing basis and shared with others.
Inquiry as Representation
Learners will share their artistic response to the poems. This is done in small groups where teachers regroup learners so that they get to see other artistic forms. As they share their artistic response to the poems they have chosen again they focus on the questions connected to the concepts.
Additional reflections could include:
How do you feel this artistic response was connected to the selected poem?
Learners as a part of the unit decide what their final piece will be and work on this.
This is shared with others in the Artistic Museum. Each student uploads their final piece e.g. video, written piece, photograph into the Artistic Museum. Included in their upload is an explanation of how they used artistic expression.
Learners then choose 2 pieces to respond to using the questions above or other questions.
Inquiry as Transformation
As the unit is taking place learners will keep a journal of their learning process and a focus on skills. They will be asked to document how they learnt, how their learning has impacted them and transformed them.
Examples could include
What I found easy and why?
What I found difficult and why?
What the biggest learning for me this week was?
How this has changed the way I think?
What I found most valuable?
Inquiry as Reflection
Reflection is built into the entire learning process, through reflecting on their learning and reflecting on their understanding of the concepts.
The ideas presented in this unit can be used for many units, in particular units that are interdisciplinary in nature. Obviously with anything there are additional ideas that people can add to this or adapt what is here to suit their own needs. There is always room for improvement. We would love to hear your thoughts and ideas about how we can improve this unit of learning for students.
Article by:
Tania Lattanzio is Director of Innovative Global Education
Beth Queeney-Dressler is Primary Principal/Deputy Director of Dresden International School, Dresden, Germany
In collaboration with:
Anne Renes & Susanna Edmonds are the Grade 4 Homeroom Teachers
Nilo Neubert is the G4 EAL teacher
Sara Larrington is the G4 Learning Support Teacher
Brandon DiTieri is the Music Specialist
Sebastian Lindler is the Performing Arts Specialist
Mandy Henning and Rene Fest are the PE Teachers
Maria Tran is the Assistant Principal/PYP Coordinator
