Module 2 - Unit Rationale

Image Source: https://pixabay.com/en/copy-space-text-box-cardboard-pack-2535266/

Analysis of the Unit Against Research and Best Practice:

This unit design has been planned using an inquiry cycle that has been developed at my current school, under the CGC (Common Ground Collaborative) framework and draws heavily upon the research of Suzanne Donovan & Bransford, (2005). The model includes the following stages, and is designed to build both conceptual understanding, and independent learners through the development of inquiry skills:

Tapping Into Current Understanding:

• To access and engage with what we currently understand and our past experiences so we know broadly where we need to go 
• To create a sense of wonder that makes students want to understand 
• To become familiar with the ‘problem space’

Finding Questions:

• To identify big questions and/or problems important enough for sustained investigation 
• To plan a pathway of questions to guide the inquiry

Exploring The Evidence:

• To explore new information/experiences that include varied perspectives 
• To evaluate information and perspectives for bias, relevance, credibility, validity and reliability 
• To rehearse and record information in ways that help us remember it 
• To practice skills in ways that lead to mastery 
• To interpret and represent information in ways that begin to make meaning from it 
• To rethink current understanding in the light of new information

Constructing Theories:

• To organize information in ways that will help us see patterns and make connections 
• To use patterns and connections to generate our own theories and make predictions

Testing Theories:

• To test our theories and predictions in new and different contexts 
• To discover when, where and how our theories are applicable

Demonstrating Understanding:

• To demonstrate and deepen our current understanding by explaining, interpreting or applying it in a task with empathy, perspective and self-knowledge

Reflecting and Acting:

• To reflect on what we learned and how we learned it 
• To feel empowered to take relevant action in future learning and in the world

The model is designed to be approached as a form of guided inquiry. Guided inquiry as defined by Kuhlthau et al. (2007) is unique in that it is a planned, targeted, and supervised structure through which students gain deep understanding of the subject area, whilst at the same time, developing both social and collaboration skills, and essential literacy skills.  Guided inquiry as defined by Kuhlthau emphasises teacher involvement in guiding students through the flow of the unit and through the discovery and exploration of resources, in order to ensure that they develop an understanding of the essential concepts and develop necessary skills.  In a comparison between inquiry models Luton (2017) identifies the following key features of a guided inquiry as opposed to structured inquiry or open inquiry models:

1. teacher poses the topic and the main questions
2. student involvement in subquestions
3. student collection of information
4. teacher guidance in supporting students to develop explanations and arguments
5. teacher guidance in the students communicating their findings

Evidence of this approach can be noted in the materials unit I have planned, through:

1. the teacher framing the inquiry through a series of understanding goals, unit questions (broad and conceptual) and a meaningful contextually based assessment task that are all developed as part of the planning process (teacher poses the topic and the main questions and teacher guidance in the students communicating their findings).
2. the opportunities developed for students to create subquestions questions through the process of participating in wondering activities (student involvement in subquestions)
3. the student research phase where they are developing experiments to gather information (student collection of information)
4. the teacher supported development of graphic organisers to help the students develop their thinking and to be able to organise it in ways that allow them to see patterns and extract theories (teacher guidance in supporting students to develop explanations and arguments).

The inquiry model used to frame this inquiry plays a significant role in helping the students to develop the conceptual ideas embedded within the unit, whilst at the same time providing a sense of value and worth to the intended learning, and developing the students skills as inquirers.  This process of simultaneously developing conceptual understanding and inquiry skills is something that I will refer to throughout this process as split-screen teaching.  There are particular areas of the cycle that I will expand on in order to provide a deeper understanding as to the pedagogical choices made in the unit. In comparison to the overall length of the unit, a significant amount of time is spend on the “Tapping into Current Understanding” phase of the inquiry. The thinking behind this comes from research by Suzanne Donovan & Bransford, (2005) about misconceptions and the importance of helping students to connect with their prior knowledge, understanding and misconceptions at the start of a unit. As highlighted by their research we know that our prior knowledge greatly affects what we perceive, how we interpret what we perceive, and our motivation for taking in new information.  Particular attention has therefore been provided in the unit in order to help the students draw out their initial thinking in a problem solving situation, and asking them to explain and justify their thinking.  In order to create a safe space for the collection of these ideas, a ‘first thinking’ chart is used to track students thinking, allowing them to return to this as the unit develops, and their as their thinking may change.

The other features of this model that have been given particular attention are the “Constructing Theories” and “Testing Theories” phases.  These components have been built into the inquiry in order to support children in organising their findings in ways that help them to see patterns and relationships between ideas, from which to create a theory or hypothesis about how something works, or why it is the way that it is.  As highlighted by Ruberg and Baro (2003 p. 40), students need to be guided and taught the process of organising information and evidence in ways that allow them to see the patterns in it, that an expert would.   In this unit this has taken the form of a large table structure that the class collectively contributes information to as it is discovered through research and experimentation.  By organising the information into this table structure based around everyday objects, the materials they can be made of, the properties of each of those materials and the potential uses for this, it provides a way for children to consider how and when different materials are used, based on the relationship between their properties and our purpose/need. Thus providing a split-screen teaching moment, where we teach children a process and structure or organising information, and at the same time, developing their understanding of materials.

As described by Murdoch (2015), expecting children to ask meaningful inquiry questions without having their curiosity sparked, is somewhat like expecting a plant to grow without water or sun.  The role of the teacher in a guided inquiry is to scaffold provocations and experiences that trigger a sense of curiosity and questioning, as well as to assist students to refine their questions in order to develop an effective path through their investigation.  As identified within Luton’s comparison of inquiry models, guided inquiry involves the teacher in framing the main inquiry questions and the students posing subquestions that form the journey that the unit will take. In this unit students are presented with a problem scenario as a means to provoke their questions for investigation, this being evidence of a generative approach to questions that guides the inquiry further from the perspective of the students. As Barell (2008, p. 46) describes, we increase student engagement, as well as their capacity to make sense of and retain the thinking that they do, when the inquiry is grounded in a problem scenario that creates a sense of wonder for them.  His work emphasises that the problems should be novel, complex, fascinating intriguing and somewhat mysterious. The umbrella problem presented to the students at the onset of this unit clearly does not meet all of the characteristics outlined by Barell (2008, p. 48)  as being central to a problem scenario, in that one might question that it may not been seen as complex enough, however it does provide a strong base from which the students can generate questions and the teachers can tap into their prior knowledge and understanding of the big concepts embedded in the unit - properties and use/purpose.

In order to assist students in further defining their questions and to assess their questions, a model to support the development of scientific questions is introduced.  This is based on the work of Schmied and Reid (2008) and frames scientific questions as being those that can have an answer, can be tested through experimentation and that build on what one already knows. These criteria are introduced to the children and used a filter for them deciding if their questions are appropriate.

Using the GeSTE windows (Lupton and Bruce, 2010, p. 13) as a lens for analysing this unit, much of this unit would be described as being approached through the situated window. 

Examples of this being:       

• The purpose of the unit is embedded in using information to solve problems around the construction of everyday items and the materials that best suit this purpose, rather than simply to evaluate and mange information. As the unit does not go as far as questioning the status quo or challenging existing practice it therefore cannot be described as transformative. 
• The information in the unit is gathered both through some research but also through observing phenomenon and using scientific practices, therefore going beyond generic search strategies and includes a range of sources beyond texts and images. This is also ground in the development of scientific skills and approaches to information gathering, supporting the idea of it being a situated inquiry.

When analysed against the revised version of Bloom’s Taxonomy (2001) there are several aspects of the unit that demonstrate high levels both within the knowledge  and the cognitive processes dimension. 

When looking at the interrelation of these two dimensions tasks from the unit connect as follows:

(Source: Iowa State University Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching; http:// www.celt.iastate.edu/pdfs-docs/teaching/RevisedBloomsHandout.pdf) 

Conceptual and Understanding : students are asked to classify materials according to degrees of particular properties, going beyond the recall of these properties and requiring the students to use their understanding to create a classification system.

Conceptual and Application / Procedural and  Application: students are asked to use their understanding of the properties to design experiments to test a range of materials, drawing upon an understanding of the properties, as well as the processes and procedures for experimentation.

Conceptual and Evaluation: students are asked to identify the effectiveness of particular materials to suit the purpose and use that is outlined, drawing upon the understanding that they have developed about the materials and their properties.

Conceptual and Creation: students are required to create a design based on their understanding of materials and their properties, and how this connects to their effectiveness for particular uses.

As this unit is one of three explored in our Grade 1 curriculum for the year, an effort has been made to ensure that the unit explicitly teaches, and opportunities for students to practice, essential inquiry skills as based on our curriculum.  Below is an extract from our inquiry skills continuum that focuses on the early primary part of our school.  Highlighted in red are the skills that are explicitly built into this unit.  These have been targeted as the serve one of two purposes in the unit:
- to help student access new information and connect it to prior knowledge
- to organise this new information in order to develop and share new understanding

TAPPING INTO CURRENT UNDERSTANDING	FINDING QUESTIONS	EXPLORING THE EVIDENCE					CONSTRUCTING THEORIES		TESTING THEORIES	REFLECTING & ACTING
State some things they think they already know about a topic Make some simple connections between what they think they know and the topic / concept(s) to be explored	Ask ‘I wonder…’ type questions about a topic Identify, with support, from a set of questions, those which can be answered easily and those which require more sustained investigation Pose questions which compare things in terms of observable / measurable characteristics Pose factual and exploratory questions based on personal interests, observations and experiences and things read or viewed recognize the difference between why, what, where, when and how questions	Identifying relevant sources of information -suggest a possible type of source (eg. ask someone, use a book etc.) Information from other people (eg. texts, interviews etc.) -use headings to extract information Information from experience ( eg. observation, experimentation etc.) -Manipulate materials with guidance to test what happens and make observations -Make simple predictions about concrete phenomena - Use more than one sense to make observations	Relevance: Select, with support, relevant information from materials and resources provided Classify information and justify groupings based on observation and experience Give reasons for what they think Credibility: Distinguish between a domain of  facts which can be falsified and a domain of taste which is inherently subjective using such strategies as role play and discussion	Record: Make close observations and describe what they notice orally Respond to an experience by capturing observations and thoughts in pictures, graphics, or simple sentences Sequence, order and rank information along dimensions provided Rehearse: Recall stories and simple facts	Interpret: Identify objects as same / different and sort them into groups based on given criteria Match information found with questions and predictions Identify similarities and differences Recognize when something is part of a larger whole Represent: Represent data in a variety of ways including o   words o   numbers o   symbols o   pictures When representing data using symbols or pictures, spatially organize and differentiate significant parts observed	Compare new ideas with what was known at the beginning of the inquiry Realize that beliefs can be false and that this is usually based on a lack of relevant information Recognize inference as a source of knowledge begin to test predictions	Sequence and order events as they happen(ed) in time Identify simple cause / effect relationships using pictures / labels and simple text Identify parts of a whole Use provided graphic organizers provided to collate information using a range of strategies such as grouping, classifying and reclassifying, comparing and contrasting making use of tools such as: o    concept maps o    Venn diagrams’ o    tables	Make simple predictions and see possibilities	Begin to test predictions	Discuss if the findings answered the research question Revisit initial thinking about the topic and see how thinking has changed

References

Barell, J. (2008). Why are school buses always yellow?. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Suzanne Donovan, M., & Bransford, J. (2005). How students learn: history, mathematics, and science in the classroom. Washington: The National Academies Press.

Lupton, M. and Bruce, C. (2017). Windows on Information Literacy Worlds: Generic, Situated and Transformative Perspectives. In: A. Lloyd and S. Talja, ed., Practising Infroamtion Literacy: bring theories of learning, practice and information literacy together. Wagga Wagga: Centre for Information Studies, pp.3-27.

Murdoch, K. and Claxton, G. (2015). The power of inquiry. Northcoate. Vic. Seastar Education.

Pigdon, K. and Woolley, M. (1995). The big picture. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann.

Roden, J., & Archer, J. (2014). Primary science for trainee teachers. London: Learning Matters.

Ruberg, L., & Baro, J. (2003). Designing graphical, interactive simulations to model scientific problem solving. In S. Naidu, Learning and Teaching with Technology: Principles and Practices (1st ed., p. 40). Abingdon: Routledge.

Schmied and Ried (2008). Scientific Questions. [online] Goscienceseven.com. Available at: http://www.goscienceseven.com/SciMethod/sciquestions.html [Accessed 15 Oct. 2017].