Title:
Teaching Students to Question the World Around Them

Context:
During my fall quarter full-time student teaching experience I introduced a unit on Native Americans to my 7th grade Washington State History class. This was a three week long unit covering various aspects of Native American life in Washington State. This artifact includes a unit plan, an inquiry lesson plan on how people first came to Washington State, and example student work. I will be reflecting on the ways students responded to an inquiry style lesson as opposed to a more traditional style of teacher directed learning.

UW TEP Goals and Targets:
Target 1A-Subject Matter Knowledge: The TEP student will demonstrate a deep knowledge of subject matter and create learning experiences that make subject matter meaningful and understandable to students. I demonstrate knowledge of my subject matter by incorporating lessons within my unit that focus on key concepts, inquiry based learning, and learning experiences that are significant to my students.

Target 1D - Subject Matter Assessment: The TEP student will understand and use formal and informal assessment strategies to evaluate and support learners' development of concepts, thinking/inquiry strategies, and strategies of communicating in the discipline. I informally assessed the inquiry process by observing the brainstorming process of the class as they revised group hypothesis to a historical question. I formally assessed the inquiry process by assigning the students a hypothesis development handout and observing their rationale for choosing their hypothesis to the historical question.

Reflection:
In designing my first unit as a full-time student teacher I wanted to make sure the students would learn the relevant content information, but also be exposed to methods of learning they had seldom or never seen before. Students in this particular school district learn Washington State History in 4th grade and again in 7th grade. I wanted to make sure my students would receive the same instruction on Native Americans as they may have received in the 4th grade. By introducing my students to methods of learning like inquiry, structured academic controversy, take-a-stand, and others, the students had a more in-depth view of the issues concerning Native Americans in Washington State and not just factual content.

I believe students learn valuable skills such as hypothesis development, teamwork, and analysis if they, instead of the teacher are directing the lesson. It is very important for students to learn the importance of questioning history so they can then transfer this process to their own lives. This is why I incorporated inquiry lessons into my unit. During my inquiry lesson on the Native American Unit I wanted to make sure that students were not only learning valuable information about the first people coming to the Northwest, but also that they were using the process of forming and revising hypotheses in determining who were the first people to come to the Northwest.

The inquiry lesson began by me asking the students the question, "How did the first people come to the Pacific Northwest?" the students brainstormed ways they thought people might have first come to the region. I took notes on the overhead projector. Then each of the students individually wrote down their initial hypothesis to the question. After the students had stopped brainstorming I presented them with one piece of data that might help them solve their question. The students read the data and then revised their group brainstorm and their individual hypothesis. This process was repeated three more times until the students had a solid list of three to six different ways people could have first come to the area. Once they had exhausted their data sets they individually came up with their own tentative conclusion along with two reasons why they chose their particular conclusion.

The way I informally assessed the students was by observing and monitoring the group brainstorm session along with quick glances at the students' hypothesis development sheets. I formally assessed the students for the inquiry lesson, as well as other lessons in the unit, by reading their hypothesis development sheets and looking at their rationale for choosing their hypothesis.

As the inquiry lesson progressed I was able to witness many students participating in the discussion who were usually very reluctant to speak in the traditional classroom format. Also, I had nearly 100% of my students turn in the homework assignment. One student noted that he liked assignments where there is no wrong answer as long as he can give reasons why he chose his answers. Inquiry is a very motivating form of learning because students have a vested interest in the task at hand. More so than learning historical facts, in inquiry learning, students give ownership to questions they investigate and try to solve.

Fortunately, my cooperating teacher and University Supervisor both agreed that student-centered learning helps students gain a better understanding of historical concepts than teacher-directed learning. My cooperating teacher has used inquiry in the past and encouraged me to develop my own method of delivering an inquiry lesson. Grant Wiggins in his article titled, "The Futility of Trying to Teach Everything of Importance", explained that one of the most fundamental concepts we can teach students is to learn through questions. "And one therefore learns self-confidence as a student only by seeing that one's questions not one's current sore of knowledge, determine whether one becomes truly educated." By giving student the power to question historical issues, we teach the valuable skill of life long questioning. As for the students' input, many of them referred to my lessons in their student evaluations as being more fun and interactive than what they were use to in other social studies classes.

For years schools have been failing to connect with students' academic interests. This is because students are more sophisticated in how they learn today. Today's students do not just sit back and let teachers inundate them with information about the past. Students now must be given a rationale for learning content and concepts. By giving students the responsibility of questioning history instead of learning factoids, they begin to see that they have a responsibility to question the world around them.

A great example of a student putting the inquiry process into practice happened during this inquiry lesson. After I had given the students the last of the data sets one student asked where I got the information. I let the class know the sources and then he explained that the class's hypotheses to the inquiry question could be totally different if they received different pieces of data. I think I scared a few of the students when I screamed "Yes!" at the top of my lungs. I explained to the class that this is exactly the type of thinking they should do whenever they learn something new. By showing students to process of inquiry it start to lay the groundwork for critical analysis and discussion about issues in all facets of life.