Having co-authored a book on science inquiry, I have learned that there are many, many powerful connections between what we would typically consider “classroom inquiry” in science and the movement to move toward inquiry in libraries according to the AASL Standards for the 21st-Century Learner.

Especially for elementary school librarians in a fixed schedule, connecting inquiry to science can be a way to take learning deeper with young students because hands-on science fits naturally with how our students explore and discover. From there, it’s an easier step into text-based inquiry, because the habits are already there.

Marcia Mardis posted an announcement to many of the school library listservs about an NSDL series of seminars about elementary science inquiry. A screenshot of the fall events is below. They’re free! What a great way to bring some professional development leadership to your building when you have little time or budget — for you and for your staff.

You can click the link underneath the screenshot to see all of the 2010-2011 events.

Hope to see you online!

BeyondPenguins/Seminars - NSDLWiki via kwout

I’m working with a librarian colleague on a small unit to develop student observation and questioning skills with first graders to tie in with their Ancient Egypt unit. (Yes, you read that right: first grade studies Ancient Egypt.)

We need your help.  Can you help us think through how we could improve the collaborative aspects of the lesson below?

We decided that a three-class exploration of hieroglyphics would complement their classroom study and give them that practice. 

We took the image below, divided it into six parts, and put each piece into a PowerPoint slide.  Each of the six work tables got a laptop and was reminded about the See-Think-Wonder format (the same approach we used with the mastodon tooth, using it as an entry point into studies of woolly mammoths).

hieroglyphics via kwout

Each table had three or four students. Our idea was that they could use the worksheet below, with each child scribing their observations onto the ledger-sized (11×17″) sheet using a unique color of ink.

Oy vey! We’re not sure if it was the students’ field trip earlier today or the spike in temperatures from the rainy 50s to the sunny 80s today or what, but although their observations were fantastic, their teamwork was not.  They argued about squeezing around the paper and about who could write what. As my colleague said, “I’ve never had that many kids cry in a half an hour before.”

When we reviewed their work, we agreed that their observations and questions were terrific but that the collaborative approach needs a makeover before the next class comes to visit on Monday. 

We’re not sure how we can encourage better group work.  Here are some thoughts rumbling in our heads:

• Appoint a notetaker/scribe or have them take turns.  However, with first graders, this could really slow down the process.
• Skip the documentation and just make it conversation.
• Make the notetaking sheet bigger - maybe poster board instead of ledger paper - so kids aren’t jockeying for position.
• Reformat the notetaking sheet or make it into multiple pages
• Divide the teams into pairs.
• Start the project as individual work.  Give each kid his or her own sheet, then have them pool their ideas into a table-based discussion.

We’re not quite sure how to do things — what do you suggest?

Many thanks,

K & T

Yesterday, I had a long and rich conversation with an English teacher from a building quite different to mine. Without knowing it, he made my heart sing when he started riffing about his concerns about Google- and Wikipedia-centered research and the perils that come when thoughtful literary analysis is over-reduced into PowerPointed bullets. (As I typed this, I realized I loved the metaphor of “over-reduced” — it made me think about reduction sauces that, if over-reduced, end up as nothing more than a blackened pan.)

Knowing that I have a couple of staff development events coming up here and elsewhere about better use of Google tools and Wikipedia, as well as how we can improve our evaluation of digital products, my brain churned for 24 hours with those ideas.  I knew I could pull some nuggets, some takeaways out of the conversation … if I just waited long enough …

Only to find that The New York Times Learning Network beat me to it.  Today, they published an awesome lesson plan that asks students to compare great orations to their PowerPoint equivalents and, from that exercise, draw conclusions about when PowerPoint is and is not effective. That’s right.  You can compare Obama’s orations to what it would look like as a deck of cruddy PowerPoint slides. Follow the links, and you can also see what the Gettysburg Address might have looked like a la Ppt:

Gettysburg Address Summary a la PowerPoint via kwout

What I love about the lesson’s approach is that instead of telling kids that all PowerPoint is bad, it asks students to consider times when traditional bullet points are effective and when they’re not.  Instead of a binary approach (do PowerPoint or ban it), it reminds us all that successful technology use lies … in how the user employs the tool.  The lesson plan’s activities give kids practice in metacognitive evaluation.  It shows but doesn’t tell.

While the lesson’s conclusion (write a paper and create a PowerPoint on the same topic; then compare) is probably more burdensome than most curricula can adopt, the lesson is strong because:

• It doesn’t just ban PowerPoint as always bad. It helps students think about appropriate tools and communication styles for the given need/audience.
• It puts kids in the evaluation seat, not the teacher.
• It asks students to think in an open-ended way.
• It includes lots of support materials, including handout of PowerPoint tips.
• It supports students as they challenge traditional thinking (yup, just like it was typical for us to take notes in spiral-bound notebooks, PowerPoint is this generation’s Typical Activity).
• It provokes social learning via conversations.

(Oh, heck. Those are bullet points.  Moving on ….)

If you’ve been looking for a way to stretch your AASL Standards thinking about self-assessments and dispositions, this might be a great one to consider.  Remember, most classroom teachers, like the one I mentioned at the top of the post, are as sick of PowerPoint as we are.  This might be a lesson that they’d be willing to squeeze in, if only to save their sanity.

Point Counter Point: How to Use (and Avoid Misusing) PowerPoint - The Learning Network Blog - NYTimes.com via kwout

But that’s not all! Check out the New York Times’ accompanying article, “Is PowerPoint in the Classroom Evil?” which starts with the stereotypical elementary “few words and some clip art” example and then morphs into a thoughtful, in-depth exploration of the many ways in which projected content can support deep and thoughtful discourse:

Is PowerPoint in the Classroom ‘Evil’? via kwout

You can follow the additional links within the clip above to find additional provocative readings about PowerPoint. In the meantime, I’m filing these articles and ideas under, “Things I wish I’d written.”