From: Chris Bretz (cbretz@gw.hamline.edu)
Date: Wed Jan 26 2000 - 12:22:37 PST
Message-Id: <s88f0345.028@STILLWATER> Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 14:22:37 -0600 From: "Chris Bretz" <cbretz@gw.hamline.edu> Subject: More inquiry and literacy
Dear colleagues,
This is an update to an e-mail sent by Bill Lindquist from Crossroads School in Saint Paul, MN. In his e-mail, he mentioned a graduate course that we at Hamline University are creating in cooperation with Bill's teachers.
We are finalizing plans to offer the course this spring on site at the Crossroads School; currently we are piloting some of the basics through some staff development activities at Crossroads. There has been tremendous initial interest in the course from teachers all over the Twin Cities, and we're excited to offer it. The course proposal has gone through university governance and will be produced in final draft soon.
I am attaching a DRAFT of the proposal for those who might be interested. Writing the proposal was a complex process, to say the least. Through the creation of this course, we attempted to answer the question, how can a child's natural inclination toward pursuing questions help to draw out critical literacy skills, and therefore provide authentic use of those skills? We examined our own broad interpretation of the inquiry process, including the formation of questions, the gathering of information about questions, and the formulation and presentation of responses to questions. We tried to determine where literacy skills could help support the child in the pursuit of her/his questions, and at which point(s) in an inquiry cycle certain skills tend to emerge naturally. We consider this course our starting point in answering our questions and hope to learn a lot as we teach it.
Interestingly, our university governance process raised several related questions. In particular, there was an extended discussion as to what "type" of course this was - literacy? science? general education? The categorization question was problematic for other reasons as well. Graduate students may or may not be able to apply credit for this course toward their degree completion depending upon which branch of the graduate school teaches it. While my department considers this course part of a greater family of graduate courses that teach about inquiry-based education, some faculty insisted that this was really a language course; others felt that inquiry and science were the same thing. Some faculty members were insistent about what to include or delete in the course title. Surprisingly, people debated quite passionately in favor of their perspectives! Our faculty's varied interpretations became very apparent as we debated these issues. We decided to categorize this as a science course temporarily, since my branch of the graduate school is responsible for the coordination of science ed. However, the integration of inquiry and literacy has obviously raised lots of unforseen issues.
Again, please bear in mind that the attachment is a draft. We welcome any comments and will gladly share our experiences with those who are interested.
Chris Bretz
Coordinator of Coursework/Assistant Professor
Center for Global Environmental Education
Hamline University
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