Friday, April 17, 2015

March- Investigated and Coalesced



I used to think... 
that inquiry was going to be very time consuming and difficult and that as an educator I wasn’t sure I was ready to take it on.  It seemed like a scary word that brought things like chaos, time consuming and too much planning to mind. 
Now I think...
 that inquiry is what I have been using to teach for a very long time-I just didn’t name it that.  I have come to realize that I use the mini-inquiry model combined with workshop to help my students think deeply about what they are learning.  The biggest change for my classroom this year is the way that my students interact and discuss with EACH OTHER.  As I have learned to fine-tune my teaching methods and really connect with who I am as an educator I find that I first focused on my classroom management, then the way that I questioned students and used the thinking strategies in our math work; and this year I focused on how to facilitate my students having the conversations with each other that allow them to deepen their understanding.  Although this year things really have come together, I feel as though without the work of my previous years it would not have been possible for my students to get where they are now.  It was as though this year all the pieces started fitting together and I had an outline to my puzzle and the picture became clearer as we put more pieces in throughout the year. 

1 comment:

  1. Hi Shannon!
    Your post completely resonated with me because of the focus on collaboration and conversation. This is one of the biggest areas of growth for me. I want to control the academic language, the content, the protocols of listening,sharing and building on each others ideas... but I want it to feel natural... Uhhhh! It is hard for me to spend time on lessons of conversation, but that is exactly what I need to do. What lessons worked the best?
    Val

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