Designing an Inquiry Learning Activity - I.T. Boot Camp

After analysing the Year 7 History unit taught within my college in the previous post I now have a better understanding of the skills required by the Year 7 cohort and the level of inquiry they are expected to work at in a curriculum area other than my own. The Inquiry Learning Activity I have designed in response to these considerations is a small part of a large modular course aimed at introducing the college's IT systems' protocols and abilities to new students. The first section of the course, the Essential Modules, will be explicitly taught over 10 sessions to all year 7 students in term 1 starting next year. The remainder of the modules are specifically aligned to either the Library or Technology areas and can be taught ad hoc* over the remaining terms when time is available or an explicit skill is required for a subject.

*It is worth mentioning that IT skills have not been explicitly taught in the college at the junior levels for many years. And the level of digital instruction for those years has solely come down to the teacher and therefore the "luck of the draw" for students. This is especially troubling as we are a 1-to-1 school. So the allowance for even the 10 sessions in term 1 is at least a small victory for myself and other advocates of 21st Century skills within the school, though we still have a long way to go. The adoption of Google Apps for Education across the school this year is a step in the right direction for embedded digital technologies in the classroom but is a steep learning curve for many teachers.

I.T. Boot Camp, currently in its infancy, is an indefinite series of modular lessons which I plan to build over time. It is broken into three categories of modules/units that explicitly tackle different areas of digital and information literacies required by students to move comfortably through high school. Although it is being taught at year 7 level I have removed all mention of year levels from the curriculum site (a google based website where the modules are accessed) in order to be able to set the modules for new students across all year levels and our high numbers of international students sitting in cross age groups. Keeping inline with the schools new focus on observable skills, I will be using the Australian Curriculum ICT Capability Learning Continuum to inform the development of an ICT continuum of observable skills needed to progress towards the demands of the senior elective classroom (the VCE here in Victoria).

This whole task is mammoth and I would be naive to think that I can complete it in due time for this particular university assignment, but the design and learning sequences are becoming focused in my mind and I will share what is the starting point of a long developmental process. Being involved in the mentoring of teachers in the use of Google Apps for Education and the construction of Google Sites to deliver the school's common curriculum means that the site and learning experience that I produce for this unit needs to be the epitome of best practise.

The breakdown of I.T. Boot Camp into 3 major modules and subsequent elements of
the Essential Modules - screenshot by author

I.T. Boot Camp is delivered via the Google Site pictured to the left. The 'Essential Modules' learning sequence (please note this is a working document and will change and update over time) is designed to take roughly 7-8 x 50 minute sessions. If the sequence has finished within that timeframe then teachers can choose modules from either the Technology or Library streams to go on with for the remaining time (depending on the specific teacher's area of expertise). Currently the new Australian Curriculum subject Digital Technologies is awaiting final endorsement although it is ready to roll out for state and territory use. In order to prepare for this new subject I am designing the modules to fit as well as possible within my limited timeframe and specific objectives. 

Students create artefacts to embed in their ePortfolio
throughout their specific Apps modules

As students progress through the Essential Modules they accumulate digital artefacts that summarise their progress through each element of the digital platforms we are indoctrinating them into (G.A.F.E., Compass & Windows). These artefacts are then reused to facilitate understanding of the Google Sites app in the ultimate production of a digital portfolio* (ePortfolio) that will follow the students through high school and act as a display of formal formative and summative tasks undertaken by the student.

A basic model of what students could produce
- screenshot by author

*A digital portfolio is a purposeful collection of learnings over time that documents personal, academic and professional development. It is a visual guide that maps where you have been, where you are going and how you plan to get there. In this context, a digital portfolio is a tool to communicate what you know and can do. Portfolios could also be assessed during it’s development as a formative assessment.

The level of inquiry embedded within this unit is not as open as I would ultimately like due to the time restrictions, but over time once the explicit teaching in I.T. Boot Camp is over students will be completely self-guiding this inquiry learning activity. Teaching explicit skills is generally a generic view of Information Literacy according to the GeSTE windows model put forth by Dr. Mandy Lupton. By introducing the production of an ePortfolio and embedding it across all the students subject areas I am hoping that this will contextualise the skills learnt. The ability for the student to design their own journey for the ePortfolio will further open the inquiry process as they will ultimately search for fixes and instructions on how to get the formats they are hoping for. Depending on what the students end up doing with their portfolios in the future (evidence for job interviews or gaining entry to future study) will effect the transformative ability of the (very long) inquiry. The creation and continued evolution of the individual portfolios situates this unit within the highest level of Bloom's Taxonomy - create, incorporating all the levels below. Each task given to the students aims to interrogate the App in question using the provided questioning framework (outlined within the curriculum scope & sequence) governed by a process resembling Lamb's 8Ws of Information Literacy.

As an aside I am also trying to embed the practise of awarding digital badges for achievements across the college which students can display on their digital portfolios. Like a virtual scout uniform covered in representations of skills learned and jobs well done. As I stated earlier this whole endeavour is gargantuan, and only in it's first stages. As with any design it is only when you start to get 'users' using it that you can tweak and refine practises to resemble the outcome you had envisaged. My first year of guinea pigs are only four months away from putting me and my learning design through its paces and I expect to be on my feet refining all aspects of I.T. Boot Camp frequently, but hopefully with a diminishing level of complexity. 

Year 7 History and the Inquiry Learning Journey - part 2

In this post I will attempt to analyse the Year 7 History unit I introduced in my last post against the various theories and concepts I have covered in my course so far. I will then offer recommendations on how to improve the inquiry journey for students studying this unit in the future.

A quick note on the History unit presented. I have chosen to look at this unit as a whole instead of the three individual parts as most might choose to (as shown below). The idea of structuring three depth studies with a varying degree of assistance from the teacher shows the gradual release of responsibility from the teacher to the student, in keeping with the notion of Scaffolding students' learning. Taking each unit as an independent sequence would limit the view of the inquiry learning journey undertaken by the students.

  

Australian Curriculum aligned course
outline from the Year 7 History unit analysed.
Permission for use granted by authors. 

Analysis against Theories & Concepts

The Year 7 History unit has been written to meet the Australian Curriculum focus skills of Historical knowledge & understanding and Historical skills at the Year 7 level and aims to address the Key Inquiry Questions set at this level as:

• How do we know about the ancient past?
• Why and where did the earliest societies develop?
• What emerged as the defining characteristics of ancient societies
• What have been the legacies of ancient societies?

The unit progresses from teacher directed instruction of explicit skills through the lens of Ancient Australia to a guided inquiry into Ancient Egypt before culminating in an open inquiry (students choose an appropriate guiding inquiry question) about either Ancient China or Ancient India. This is an example of a Coupled Inquiry (defined as progression from teacher guided to student guided). 

Intertwined throughout the whole unit are the various progressions of Bloom's Taxonomy.
Students are asked to:

by  nist6dh 

• Write definitions of key words/concepts using the textbook (Remembering)
• Write a short explanation about how the climate affected the everyday life of Ancient Egyptians.. (Understand) 
• Use information contained in a presentation to create a detailed diagram that highlights 'change and continuity' between each [Ancient Egyptian] Kingdom. (Apply) 
• Compare and contrast images/phrases that define the characteristics of an ancient society against the characteristics that define a society today. (Analyse) 
• Examine the different theories of how the Pyramids were constructed and evaluate the different theories. (Evaluate)
• Formulate their own inquiry question about an ancient civilisation (India, or China) then collate and organise information in order to answer the inquiry question. (Create)

The explicit teaching of Historical Inquiry Skills within the initial stages, a Generic approach, followed by the contextualisation of those skills within the Inquiry into Ancient Egyptian life, place this unit within the Situated window of the GeSTE windows framework. Involving students in historical thinking pushes past the Generic window with activities like "Writing an imaginative letter to a friend adopting the persona of a person living in ancient Egypt" and the "Evaluation of theories related to the construction of the pyramids".

Students are required to interrogate and evaluate primary & secondary sources using ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘why’ questions set out in their textbook and Generic questions (see inset below) are given to guide students to draw conclusions about a usefulness of sources - that resemble the questions asked in the C.R.A.P. test.

DRAWING CONCLUSIONS ABOUT THE USEFULNESS OF SOURCES A useful source, whether primary or secondary, is one that will add to your understanding of a historical inquiry. The source needs to be relevant to the topic or question asked and must also be reliable.  The following are good questions to ask in order to determine the usefulness of a source:  ☺ Is it a reliable source?  ☺ Is there enough information and sufficient detail to help me answer the inquiry   question?  ☺ Does the information support and reinforce evidence from other sources? ☺ Is it balanced or does it present one point of view (bias)?  ☺ Is it based on fact or opinion?  ☺ Is the information current?

NSW DET Information process

The unit uses the New South Wales Department of Education and Training's (NSW DET) Information Skills Process (ISP), although not named as such within the curriculum documentation. This model guides the students through both their guided and individual inquiries.

Screen shot of the Information Process used within the unit. Permission to use granted by authors.

Assessment as and of learning in this unit come in a variety tasks. The skills are measured against a unique continuum created for the college. Using the Australian Curriculum and research theory coupled with teacher expertise, staff have built continua of the natural progression of skills as seen in their students. Capturing the observable skills and learning the students show at each step of their learning journey. This helps to create realistic snapshots of students and creates a common language between teachers across year levels thus allowing greater tailoring to individual students’ Zone of Proximal Development. Matrices for assessment tasks are informed by the continua and act as concrete tools to assess student progress throughout tasks. This allows all students demonstrate ability regardless of level in all assessment tasks.

Recommendations for enhancing the unit

Year 7 History is such an extensive unit when looked at as a whole. Isolating each depth study would have brought up deficits in different areas. The fact that these units are not mutually exclusive and must be taught in sequence shows that a lot of thought was put into the progression of student abilities across the whole subject area.

In order to push this through into the Transformative window of the GeSTE framework, this unit could have gone on to look at the commonalities between the treatment of people in Ancient Societies and today's society and taken on a moral stance towards an issue effecting the world today. The line of questioning such as "What mistakes have been made in the past?", "What mistakes are we still making now?" and "What can we do to help stop or minimise the impact of these mistakes?" could help students reflect on their learning and push them to an activist role for human rights issues through the lens of the Ancient Societies, however this may be difficult.