Facilitating Learning through Inquiry

Leslie Maniotes, PhDLiteracy and Learning Consultant

Welcome and Hellos! Introduce yourself- school1 Hope and 1 fear for this work that lies ahead.

Process- introductions work on building community

Priming the room for thinking and collaborative work

The PlanTrainingTime to work together and prepareFacilitate your session with leadsReflect

Repeat in December

Learning Goals for Participants

Shift our teaching stanceMoving from teaching as telling to teaching as

facilitating learning.Facilitating independent learners and learning

21st Century skillsCollege and Career Ready

Powerful LearningWhat was your most powerful learning experience? Try to give an example of an outside of school

learning experience.

Get into triads or groups of 4Each share a story (2 minutes) of a powerful

learning experienceList the common elements among your stories.Each triad share common elements with the group

Sam Chaltain Faces of Learning

What was your most powerful personal experience in a learning community- inside or outside school?

Who was your most effective teacher and what was it about that person that made him or her so effective?

Challenging Engaging Supportive Relevant Experiential

ProcessDiscuss that “activity” as a learning tool.What was the learning/discovery/exploration?What techniques were used?Why did we choose it for now?

Facilitate meansHelp bring aboutEase

Connections to ChaltainSupportiveChallengingRelevantEngaging

Facilitating LearningEngaging learners not Teaching kidsConstructing learning vs. transmitting

information “I told them that last week!” problem

Why do you think facilitating learning is critical to an inquiry

approach? What does it look like?Take a moment to journal about this idea.

Share with your partner.

ProcessHow is your understanding of facilitation

changed or grown?Personal time to reflect and connect ideasMake our thinking public

How did I facilitate this?

10 Qualities of Successful Lessons

Plan lessons with your students in mind Use a predictable lesson structure Make listening to students the <3 of your lesson Keep the body of the lesson on open ended topic Never lose track of the lesson objective Use facilitating techniques to probe student thinking Listen and invite students to do most of the talking Set up students to work independently Help students develop the social skills for successful peer

interaction Work with students to create community

The Lesson Planning Handbook: Essential Strategies that Inspire Student Thinking and Learning(2010). Peter Brunn, Scholastic: NY, NY.

Get into triads.Prioritize this list.

Pick your groups’ top 3. Give reasons why you think it is most important

for us right now, for this fifth grade unit, for this type of learning, OR for our students.

Discussion reasoning

ProcessRationale- for letting you have choices Choice means voice-

Comes from a need or desire to knowHow can you create choice in your sessions?

Make listening to students the <3 of your lesson

Third Space

Construct opportunities for students to make their thinking public

Include checks for understanding- process and content Accountable talk

Data collection, kid watching, artifactsOrganized plan to analyze the data to reflect on what

students are learning & what gaps they may have

Talk to your partnerLook at the diagram.What do you remember about Third Space?How would you tell someone else about this

idea?

What are the important points to remember?

Kuhlthau, C., Maniotes, L., Caspari, A. GUIDED INQUIRY

Use facilitating techniques to probe student thinking

Spend less time explaining lesson content MORE time engaging students around it.

How? Design lessons with student engagement in mind. Flip lessons from explaining to engaging. QUESTION- probe thinking Uncover students meaning making Use ‘turn to your partner’ to increase participation OPEN ENDED questions Listen – value student thinking- Third Space

Help students develop the social skills for successful peer interactionRoutine – simple but powerful

How to look at one another Take turns How to add on to one another’s thinking

Explore - Pair ShareRequire students to use full sentencesAccountable talk – sentence stems for talking

to one another

Process

Presenter Feedback tool+ - deltaQuestions- SurveyGenerally, reflections tell you

how did I do as a presenter, how did I facilitate learning today, what did participants take away, did I meet your needs as a learner and/or the

learning objective

Time to plan for your sessions

What questions do you have for me?