Batten Down!

Batten Down!

Summarize my final thoughts? It’s going to be harder than it sounds because I’ve learned so much & have so many bits of ideas floating around in my mind.

Inquiry-Based Learning . . . 

• IBL isn’t a well-intentioned but misguided attempt to let the students learn what, when, where, & how they want to learn. It’s a highly structured teaching strategy that capitalizes on student backgrounds, interests, & prior learning. 
• IBL requires a lot of thoughtful, prior planning by the teacher who wishes to use it well. 
• A rich sense of the classroom as a community is absolutely necessary. 
• Students may need to be taught how to “do” inquiry & to develop the requisite skills for authentic inquiry. 
• IBL includes a wide range of practical strategies from teacher-centered & highly structured lessons, to more open-ended, student-centered investigations. 
• Teacher’s need to begin with the end in mind with clearly articulated curricular goals, which are pursued as they help students to develop the skills, abilities, & understandings for authentic inquiry. 
• Some questions are better than others. Students need to pursue investigable questions whose answers can be discovered because they’re based in discoverable facts, not overarching, theoretical concepts / constructs. 
• Facts are discoverable, not merely empirical. 
• Web 2.0 offers a vast array of resources to assist both teacher & student in the process of inquiry. 
• Web 2.0 tools need to be chosen with care & with an eye on the inquiry’s goals. They need to be well-integrated within the lesson so as to be of genuine help to the inquiry. 
• The lesson plan is both spring board & landing pit. Lessons need be designed backwards to accomplish learning goals. 
• Formative assessment is necessary during all phases of the inquiry. 
• Summative assessment is should be done with the process, not only the content, in mind. 
• Rubrics should provide a clearly articulated structure for student assessment.

 And, there’s more that I need to review & to practice as I find how to include IBL in my classroom.

At the end of this semester, I will have presented a new course in the history, character, development, & ongoing relevance of Dominican Spirituality. It’s a required course in the senior theology curriculum. The question that I have as we end the year concerns how I might dip a toe into IBL with the time remaining in the semester. There’s not much time left! Just this weekend we began our “end of year events” with Hall of Fame inductions, the scholarship dinner gala, and the Mother-Senior mass & brunch. And, AP’s are just around the corner. So, I might shift the focus to my junior level final projects.

Since I’m not teaching summer school this year I’ll have time to take stock of the senior level course. I’ll be introducing the new curriculum to two colleagues who haven’t taught the course before, but who are on-deck for it come fall. So, I’ll share with them some of what I’ve learned in the course to see if we can develop one of two lessons that are decidedly IBL lessons for the new school year. And, then continue to build from there.

So, it’s time to batten down the hatches. First, to weather the end of this year! Second, to get ready for next!