Teaching+as+inquiry-word+targets

I described in the last Tuesday morning PD session how I had travelled through the teaching as inquiry cycle last term, here is a summary.

Step 1 __Focusing Inquiry__- What is important given where my students are at? My level 1 science students were having difficulty writing extended explanations which linked ideas and became more thorough

Step 2 __Teaching Inquiry__-What strategies (evidence based) are most likely to help my students learn this? I have had lots of success in recent years with critical and creative thinking templates so decided to use a similar scaffold, designed the word target template Step 3 __Teaching/Learning__ I asked students to write an answer then we worked together on the template and then revisited a similar question and compared the grade on each answer

Step 4 __Learning Inquiry__- What happened as a result of the teaching and what are the implications for future learning? The students seemed to grasp the idea that an answer can be correct but this does not mean it is the best answer and that this method could help them grasp the extra depth required We have developed the target slightly to use with methods Several teachers have now used the template and reported success with their classes.