Reflective Blog #2

1. How can a teacher find balance between traditional knowledge-based content standards and more process-oriented skills? 

     It used to be that teachers spent a fair amount of time teaching children the "facts" about different subjects. This left little room for encouraging children to figure out any of these facts themselves. With the introduction and use of the internet now, most people are able to research things themselves if they are wanting to know more about a particular subject. Along with this ability to research information, a person must first understand what specifically it is that they want to learn and then how to go about obtaining that type of information. This requires a higher process thinking skill level because you are directing the learning instead of simply letting someone else tell you what you need to know. This also requires a higher level of comprehension. 
     In order for a teacher to be able to find "balance" between the two, he or she needs to not only teach or explain the facts but also find ways to encourage children to analyze and apply those facts to real world situations and be able to understand how they could investigate similar information and use it.  
     One way of being able to incorporate these two or "balance" them is to use inquiry based programs in collaboration with existing lesson plans. If for example a teacher were to be presenting a lesson plan in English on writing a factual newspaper article, he or she could use an inquiry based program to help the students figure out how to successfully write an article. Rather than to simply give them the components needed in writing an article and then testing them on the facts needed, the teacher could explain the different parts included in a factual newspaper article and then set the students up using an inquiry based program. This inquiry based program could then guide them in the following ways: 
1. Getting them to Create a list of questions that would be used up front to write the article 
2. Hypothesizing or determining what the ultimate goal should be in writing the article (what the students hope the reader will realize after reading their article)
3. Investigate or research information for the article (have them decide what are they going to report, how are they going to get this information and then actually obtain the information)
4. Analyze or determine what is the best way to convey the information that they were able to find. What is the best way to write or convey this information. 
5. Modeling (actually writing an article)
6. Evaluating (ask the students to evaluate each other. Have the students read each others articles and determine if they were able to come away at the end of the article with the hypothesis that was created. In addition, the teacher could evaluate the article to determine if it met the criteria of what an investigative article should include.) 

2. Key Factors that help improve the success of inquiry-based lessons? 

     According to several critiques of the student led inquiry-based programs, these programs tend to net positive results only when there is a sufficient level of higher knowledge in a subject that the student possesses. This would seem to indicate that in order for these types of programs to really be successful the student must first have a solid higher level of understanding of the subject matter that he or she is trying to gain further insight into by using the inquiry based program. This would also seem to indicate that a teacher must first make sure to teach the student the basic facts around a subject before asking the student to then analyze those facts and manipulate them and hypothesis about what they think will happen. 
     Secondly the teacher needs to determine how the students knowledge and performance will be evaluated using these types of programs. If the teacher has a firm outcome determined up front of what he or she hopes the student will realize after using the program, then the inquiry-based program will be considered more successful, meaning that the goal of the lesson plan can be seen as being accomplished.
     Another key factor similar to the knowledge understood and performance is aligning the standards expectations up with inquiry-based programs. What this means is that the teacher needs to determine up front how the expected state standards can be applied within the inquiry-based programs. Schools are not going to be willing to support inquiry-based programs unless they see the positive results between knowledge of standards being comprehended in conjunction with using these types of programs. 
     Lastly, another strong factor for success is to make sure that these inquiry based lessons are done in group situations. This encourages the students to be able to collaborate with each other on ideas. 

3. What role can technology play in assisting those factors? 

     First technology can provide access to information that students need to research. For example, if students were investigating things that would affect the growth of grass or plants in science, they can research or look up information on the internet or specific science websites through their school district library system. This would help them to quickly compile a list of things that they thought might make an impact in the growth of their plant or grass. 
     Allowing students to create models, charts or graphs to show the results or the expected results related to an investigation they are questioning, researching and hypothesizing about. In the example from above, students could make a chart to show what the expected growth would be of the grass or plant when they introduced certain stimuli and they could also create a similar chart or graph to show the actual results. These two charts or graphs can then be compared. 
     Lastly, it also enables students to be able to collaborate with other students in different locations. They can review the results of similar types of experiments being performed in other schools not in their district or even in their home town. They can compare information, hypotheses and view other models that other students have put together.