My+Study+Question

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My study question is
How can I use a rubric to effectively promote self-directed learning during inquiry-based teaching? My initial proposal was based on my Practicum Four Year 4-8 class. However, I had moved to a new school with a new group of Year 5-6 learners for Practicum 5. After meeting with my AT and discussing the class’ inexperience with inquiry learning, I decided to modify the unit from being pure inquiry to a teacher-directed inquiry unit. The difference was I chose the big idea rather than the students, the students would answer only one subsidiary question, the whole class worked collaboratively with the teacher, and there would be more explicit teaching of inquiry skills. =** What I did **= __ Prior to Prac 5 __ __ Week 1 __ __ Week 2 __
 * Where the research took place **
 * Met with AT to gather information on the student’s abilities, prior experience, strengths, needs, routines, and discuss my self study
 * Planned a teacher-directed inquiry unit to operate over the full four week time frame [[file:Inquiry_Unit_Spiders.pdf]]
 * The pre-test was administered, results evaluated and the data used to inform my pedagogy [[file:KWL_Chart.pdf]]
 * Hooking phase
 * The goals for the first week of the inquiry into Spiders were to introduce the inquiry, create relevance by connecting to the student’s prior knowledge and experiences, and saturate the students with information in a variety of formats so that they became mini-experts.
 * I kept a reflective journal to critically reflect on my teaching and learning experiences in each phase of the inquiry.
 * Introduced assessment rubric [[file:InquiryRubric.pdf]]
 * Questioning phase
 * The goals were to co-construct the big question, construct subsidiary questions independently and decide on key words
 * Integrated teaching of skills and knowledge across English, Visual Art and Maths learning areas
 * Introduced Inquiry Research Planner to help the students and I stay on track with checkpoints [[file:SpiderResearchPlanningSheet.pdf]]

__ Week 3 __ __ Week 4 __
 * Gathering phase
 * The goals were to plan, research, explore and interpret elements of our chosen learning focus and to answer the subsidiary question.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">The ‘Collecting the Information and Resources’ dimension of the assessment rubric was discussed to highlight the progression of skill
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Change in pedagogy from collaborative inquiry to direct explanation and demonstration in a whole class instructional context
 * <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Introduced a graphic organiser for students to keep track of their sources and information while researching [[file:NoteTakingtoNoteMakingSheet.pdf]]
 * Creating and Reflecting phases
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">The goals were to answer the big question, create a presentation to share our learning with others, evaluate and celebrate our learning
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Change back to inquiry pedagogy
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Students self-assessed their learning using the inquiry assessment rubric
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Students reflected individually and reevaluated their confidence in completing an inquiry unit using the same scale as in the pretest [[file:IndividualStudentReflections.pdf]]
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">I assessed their presentations and inquiry skills using the same inquiry assessment rubric