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Supporting Student Inquiry

Course Activities and Schedule

Week 1: Building our community around inquiry and inquiry-based projects

• Meet and mingle
• Create a homepage
• Discuss inquiry
• Read/Review article and websites
• Reflect on readings

Week 2: Beginning the design of a project and venturing into strategies that support inquiry

• Create a driving question and investigation
• Read about strategies
• Discuss strategies

Week 3: Exploring strategy #1: Setting Expectations

Continuing to build projects, incorporating strategies into project

• Exchange ideas on driving questions
• Read about setting expectations
• Create a set of expectations

Week 4: Exploring strategy #2: Modeling Desired Outcomes

• Read about modeling
• View video clip of teacher modeling
• Discuss modeling
• Network and collaborate on colleagues' projects

Week 5: Exploring strategy #3: Providing Feedback

Building assessment into projects via artifacts

• Discuss feedback
• Read about feedback
• Create an artifact

Week 6: Wrapping up: Reflecting on course goals and progress

• Share reviews of artifacts
• Reflect on and discuss course progress and insights

Course Readings

Blumenfeld, P., Soloway, E., Marx, R., Krajcik, J., Guzdial, M., & Palincsar, A. (1991). Motivating project-based learning: Sustaining the doing, supporting the learning. Educational Psychologist, 26, 369-398.

Collins, A., Brown, J. S., & Newman, S. (1989). Cognitive apprenticeship: Teaching the crafts of reading, writing and mathematics. In L. B. Resnick (Ed.), Knowing, Learning, and Instruction: Essays in Honor of Robert Glaser. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.