From: by way of fred@exploratorium.edu (biofem@ride.ri.net)
Date: Thu Aug 12 1999 - 11:44:48 PDT
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 11:44:48 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <v01550108b3d85a1eeee2@[192.174.3.101]> From: Lucille Andolfo <biofem@ride.ri.net> (by way of fred@exploratorium.edu (Fred Stein)) Subject: Inquiry Course
Hi all,
I'm forwarding a message from Lucille Andolfo from the KITES project in
Rhode Island. It descibes an inquiry workshop she taught recently. Her
course was taught to a small group of teachers (so in activities like Tops,
where you ordinarily divide into small subgroups, it made more sense to
remain as one group rather than three tiny groups).
If you have a moment, please consider describing your summer staff
development work for the list!
Best,
Fred Stein
Institute for Inquiry
415-561-0332
Hi Fred,
Just wanted to let you know how my course at URI went. I had a great time
and everything worked out well. My evaluations from the group were
excellent, and I was very happy with the results.
I did the Three Kinds of Hands-On as you suggested, with the group
working as a whole, rotating from the exploratory activity to the challenge
to the guided. It worked like a charm - the group was very sophisticated,
and reflected immediately on the fact that there was a place for all three
types, but that they would use it in that order, with the guided last to
fine tune any concepts they wanted to impress the students with. Luckily,
there was one woman in the group who grew up with brothers and was very
mechanically inclined, with good fine motor skills. She was very helpful
to me; if you remember, fine motor skills are not my forte! I do think
that I need more tops of the old fashioned kind; the new-fangled gyro tops
and spaceships, etc. were OK, but I would have felt better with some simple
ones. I only had 3 of these, and 2 were the kind that write as they spin.
With ice balloons, I tried some of the modifications I had been
reading about on the LIST and at the IFI site, but have some
recommendations. For example, I only passed out the flashlights at the
beginning, for about 10 min., then I passed out the food coloring (only
one), and this was good. The modifications said to limit the materials to
a few at a time, but I prefer to make available all the other stuff at once
at this point. Since I was working with a small group, this tended to
quickly direct them in a certain focus, instead of exploring, which
resulted in the exclusion of other avenues. Maybe I just didn't
facilitate this well, but I have done the workshop several times before,
and I prefer to keep it more open at this point in the activity,
particularly with small groups. That is what has worked best for me. Also,
I tried to make up different kinds of ice balloons, with cold aerated
water, and then hot unaerated water, but it was confusing for the
participants. They suggested using different colored water or different
color balloons to be filled. Also, I boiled water to remove the air, but
couldn't get it into the balloons, so I used plastic containers and then
unmolded them. Lastly, the materials list suggested having a dieter's
scale for participants to use, and I bought one, but it did not work well.
I would suggest trying a triple beam balance for more accuracy and less
frustration.
I loved the balance activity and it went extremely well. I explained
to the group that this was new for me and that we would experience it
together, with my facilitation. they were very cooperative and we had a
great time doing it. I think I learned a tremendous amount about balance
and torque and systems feedback, etc., and so did the group. They also saw
how inquiry looks in a classroom setting. It was wonderful - I love this
activity!
On the last day, I did the parachute activity for redesign. The
group wished they had more time to actually work on their own materials,
since only one of the teachers had her science resource book at home with
her. I had asked them to bring in things to work on after we did
parachutes, but they didn't have them accessible. This is no reflection
on IFI, but on the URI setup - I did not know who was in the course or
if it would run at all until well into the summer, so I could not inform
them of this before school got out. But it is room for improvement if I do
this sort of thing again in the future. I wish there was a plan to meet
with the group again once school gets going - perhaps this is something
that Betty Young might consider me doing during the school year. All in
all, I think it was a success. I asked the participants to write a letter
to themselves about what they had gotten out of the course, and what they
intended to implement, with a date on the envelope that they would like me
to mail it to them. This will allow for some follow-up.
Thanks for reading this longggggg message.
Warm Regards,
Lucille
"Education should be an itch, not a scratch." (Jay McTighe)
***************************************************************************
Lucille Andolfo
Science Department Chairperson
Mt. Hope High School
Bristol Warren Regional School District
mailto:biofem@ride.ri.net
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