This blog is designed to support the development of inquiry skills, disciplinary thinking and problem based learning approaches within social studies, geography and history.
This site is designed to support learning modules offered within the TDSB, however, others can benefit and contribute. Please send any comments or contributions to problembasedlearningtdsb@gmail.com.
Consider how your strand or subject reflects opportunities for problem based learning.
Explore your curriclulum to determine big questions that can become the problem focus for the investigation
For social studies refer to the inquiry expectations
What are my next steps?
Consider the skills that you need to teach your students? (collaboration skills, questioning, gathering and organizing resources, interpreting and analyzing, communicating)
See how one teacher begins his inquires be focusing on building knowledge
Developing the language of Inquiry
"Most students need some help to discover what dialogue is and to develop grand conversation skills (Barnes, 2008)" http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/CBS_Grand_Conversations_Junor.pdf Provide opportunities for students to see and practice the talk and listening skills needed to stimulate higher order thinking. For example: listen and speak, build on others statements, explain how you arrived at a solution, draw conclusions about what might happen next To explore this process more visit our page: Developing the Language of Inquiry.
Determine the prior knowledge that students have
Students come to many topics with an understanding from their own expeiences or background. It is useful for teachers to gather this information because it can guide the inquiry and it is a key element of the knowledge building process.
How can I find out what they know? (RAN Organizer)
1) Consider using the RAN teaching strategy (RAN Organizer). This is based on Tony Snead's adaptation of the KWL chart.
To access the file click here. (Word)
2) Another approach to determine what students know is to use an anticipation guide http://www.adlit.org/strategies/19712/. The guide will include misconceptions that surround particular concepts. Students will then explore some content related to the topic and reflect on their previous ideas.
3) See the attached page that contains a variety of strategies that teachers can use with students to determine prior knowledge and perspective.
4) Building and Activating: This article discusses the kinds of background knowledge that students bring to a learning experience. It also emphasizes the kinds of experiences that lead to understanding rather than regurgitation.
5) Examples of PBL
Explore your curriculum to determine how Problem Based Learning approaches can become the focus of your SSHG program.
Take a look at the following suggestions to see problem based challenges in grades 1-6.
Commercial Materials
Examine commercial resources that reflect challenges related to problem based learning
In East York a class is investigating their local community past and present. One of the problems is how can we learn about our past ?
Focus - Continuity and change
The class is integrating social studies and language to conduct authentic research. This plan has been shared with parents since it includes content that only parents can share. The students are asking questions, reviewing a variety of resources and analysing the data using some of the thinking concepts (continuity and change). They will be given many opportunities to communicate their learning as well.
So far the class has created different family trees to emphasize that everyone has history. This approach has also included everyone's story. Parents help their children to share the information that they are comfortable with. As I spoke with the class I could see that this activity has validated each students' experience. The family history assignment has evolved into a mapping task and provided story writing opportunities. Included in this investigation will be an analysis of images of life in the community past and present. A trip to the TDSB TUSC schoolhouse will add to the experience. The class is exploring historical fiction novels relating to the 1800s as well.
We anticipate that the class will create an annotated map highlighting the immigrant experience (past and present). We found a laminated world map at Cosco for $7.95 that will be the foundation for the annotated map. This guided inquiry has created many new questions that can be explored by the whole group.
Discipline Based Inquiry - grade 2 Inuit Unit from Alberta
Our achievement charts identify thinking as one of the components that must be assessed. This means that we need opportunities beyond "Knowledge and Understanding"
_____What is critical thinking?
The three Cs
Garfield Gini-Newman discusses the 3 Cs—critical, creative and collaborative thinking—with the host of CTV’s Ottawa Morning Live. (5:23 minutes)
In Ontario the "Thinking" segment of our achievement chart includes: use of planning skills, use of processing skills and the use of critical/creative thinking processes. In Social Studies Geography and History this includes applying the concepts of disciplinary thinking, using inquiry skills and engaging in problem-solving and decision making processes. In English this includes drawing inferences, interpreting,analysing, synthesizing, evaluating, oral discourse, research, critical analysis, critical literacy,metacognition, and creative process
Understanding critical thinking Critical thinking involves thinking through
problematic situations about what to believe or how to act where the thinker makes
reasoned judgments that embody the qualities of a competent thinker.
Read the following document to gain a deeper understanding aboutthinking critically,which really refers to the quality of our thinking.
Embedded skill development (Thinking Skills) across the curriculum
This video
explains with interesting visuals and specific examples how to systematically
integrate the skill and content dimensions of the curriculum to enhance
students' understanding and increase their ability to think and learn more
effectively. Prepared with the support of the Learning Network and the Council
of Atlantic Ministers of Education and Training, the video explores (6:32
min)
_____Which questions are critical thinking questions?
Who lives farthest away from here? What is your favorite beverage? Was John A MacDonald a good leader? The CT2 has emphasized three types of questions that are asked in classrooms
Questions that focus on a literal response
Questions that ask for an opinion
Questions that require a judgement using some form of criteria
Our goal is to provide opportunities and instruction to enable students to make decisions while gathering evidence, or interpreting and analyzing information and data. This requires questions that go beyond literal information and opportunities for students to develop criteria for their decisions.
How can you lead the develop of Critical Thinking Approaches in your learning community?
See the presentation listed below. This outlines a presentation delivered in Alberta with embedded video clips.
There are six levels of bloom's taxonomy, in order (lowest to highest), are knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. The stages reflect different aspects of the cognitive domain, which relate to how the brain processes information and thoughts. The tools associated with Blooms Taxonomy can help us to facilitate questions that demand reasoned decisions. This tool emphasizes the importance of remembering information, but it also shows other aspects of thinking.
What does Bloom's Taxonomy look like? (variety of posters)
Reflection
How do these questions relate to the curriculum you teach?
What opportunities (scaffolding) do you need to provide so students can succeed with these types of questions?
_____How can I move forward in my classroom?
-creating frequent opportunities to develop skills
-teaching specific thinking tools to build competence
-supporting independent student use of the thinking tools Listen to Lucy West as she talks about the discourse that occurs in many classrooms.
How can changes in this discourse promote student thinking opportunities? Can we model and practice the skills that lead to critical thinking? See the Language of Inquiry page to explore ideas relating to accountable talk.
Use this summary during your planning to help you embed critical thinking
into every lesson. This guide is useful without becoming a member):
_____Critical Thinking Challenges
See the samples of critical challenges primarily produced through the Critical Thinking Consortium. These samples reflect primary, junior and intermediate classrooms.
_____What about Assessment?
Thinking is part of our Achievement Chart in Ontario so it is integral to learning. The achievement chart provides a rubric and teachers can develop success criteria with their classes and departments to ensure that students are evaluated fairly. The assessment process (As and For) provides students with opportunities to receive feedback to improve their learning.
Reflection How does the achievement chart help us to focus on Thinking in our assessment and evaluation? What aspects of thinking are focused on in the current units/course outline you are teaching? How are you using assessment for/as learning to develop reasoning skills? How can your grade team/department focus on developing "thinking skills" so students can use content to make reasoned decisions?
In this critical challenge, students develop and use criteria to select artifacts that represent their personal identities. Students share their artifacts with a partner and discuss their significance, before selecting the three most powerful artifacts that represent their most unique and important features.
In this critical challenge, students examine historical images depicting key groups (e.g., Francophone, First Nations, Metis, Inuit, European immigrants) in urban and rural settings in Alberta. Students then tell a story about life in Albertas past, based on the evidence found in the visuals.
Creating a Commemorative Box http://www.learnalberta.ca/content/ssoc5/html/creatingacommemorativebox_cc.html
Decorate the inside and outside of a commemorative box to show both the influence of a specific person on a community and the impact of that community on the person's identity.
Identify especially notable contributions made by one of the groups living in Alberta during the 19th and early 20th centuries and express your appreciation, in a letter, to an appropriate cultural organization connected to the group.
Determine the stories that artifacts tell about life for early Albertans.
Write a persuasive letter to a curator explaining why a particular artifact deserves to be added to the museum's
Students explore the implications of Confederation by determining whether three key decisions represented an extreme makeover or merely a paper change to life in Canada in the 20 years before and after 1867.
In this two-part critical challenge, students research and assess the most significant contribution made to pre-Confederation British North America by assigned historical figures, then write brief epitaphs that praise the involvement and contributions of three of these figures.
In this critical challenge, students rewrite a pre-Confederation Canadian event, based on a specific perspective, using relevant and available evidence.
In this two-part critical challenge, students gather evidence to rate the extent to which four conditions for peaceful co-existence were present for an assigned group - First Nations, Metis, French or British - during the fur trade of the 1700s. Students then write a recipe for peaceful co-existence among the four groups, based on the perspective of their assigned group.
In this critical challenge, students consider criteria, based on such factors as transportation, natural resources, geography and climate, to determine the best location for a new community in an assigned region of Canada.
In this two-part critical challenge, students identify the perspective and message depicted in drawings of early contact between Europeans and First Nations people in pre-Confederation Canada. Students then redraw or describe the drawing, based on an alternative perspective.
In this critical challenge, students research the events and results of the Red River resistance of 1869 and the second Metis uprising of 1885. Students then write and perform a monologue that reflects the experiences and perceived reactions of an individual who played a key role in these conflicts.
Several examples of the inquiry process were shared and we listened to a colleague from Midland as he explained how inquiry and problem based learning is demonstrated in his classroom.
In the picture below we see how the class acted on their learning. They shared with the greater community and they have impacted town. Click here to read the complete article.
Planning for authentic integrated learning with a focus on Canadian Identity (video). This could be considered a problem - How do we repreent Canadian Identity?
Developing the language of Inquiry
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