As mentioned, I have done some initial searches in Google and Google scholar for articles on Inquiry based learning, Guided Inquiry and Information Literacy without putting in any other contextual features of my Information learning activity. Now that I have begun this Exploration phase (Kuhlthau, 2007) and started to look up databases for scholarly literature to inform my context, I need to investigate some parameters for
searching more fully. Although A+Education had some relevant literature available in the articles and webbased journals, I thought I would now go back to Google Scholar and try searching here, possibly using some of the same phrasing and suggestions as I used in A+.
The screen shot above shows my first search using the following search terms and Boolean Operators:
"Inquiry Learning" and "Science" and "primary students"
This produced 158 hits and some good articles especially this one below in which this model of Progessive Inquiry caught my eye. This paper by Minna Lakkala was prepared as background material for an Inquiry-based learning course as a short presentation of the pedagogical model of Progressive Inquiry. As I read through her paper, I could identify with some very pertinent aspects of her model in my search for information for this Learning Activity. Although it is not one of the Information Literacy models that Mandy has directed us to investigate in the tutorials...I was able to identify some common themes emerging.
As a pedagogical model for Inquiry, I particularly liked the emphasis on questioning to deepen understanding and to engage the students more fully so that inquiry would continue to take place. I feel that I am working somewhat in this model as I become "expert-like" in my quest for knowledge and where the aim is understanding and explanation of phenomena (Lakkala, 2008) . The sharing of this expertise and new and not so new knowledge, is also what we are doing in the tutorials, and as we provide feedback to our colleagues who share a common context.
"The progressive inquiry model has been developed as a guiding conceptual tool that helps
teachers to engage their students in expert-like working with knowledge. The model captures
certain essential aspects of the knowledge-creation process, such as importance of students’
own questions and problems as a starting point, attention to main concepts and deep
principles of the domain, engagement in deepening inquiry where the aim is understanding
and explanation of phenomena, and socially shared process of inquiry. However, the
progressive inquiry model only gives a generic approach on learning; each teacher’s
challenge is to transform these principles into functional educational practice in their own way." (Lakkala, 2008)
teachers to engage their students in expert-like working with knowledge. The model captures
certain essential aspects of the knowledge-creation process, such as importance of students’
own questions and problems as a starting point, attention to main concepts and deep
principles of the domain, engagement in deepening inquiry where the aim is understanding
and explanation of phenomena, and socially shared process of inquiry. However, the
progressive inquiry model only gives a generic approach on learning; each teacher’s
challenge is to transform these principles into functional educational practice in their own way." (Lakkala, 2008)
However, a lot of the websites did not provide fulltexts of the journal articles, so they proved fairly
fruitless in terms of relevant and useful information. So back to the drawing board!
This time I decided to use some synonyms for my context and instead of primary I thought I would extend it to middle years, elementary and even upper primary. I also put in guided inquiry to see what path that would take us on.
So my new search in Google Scholar became:
"inquiry based learning" "guided inquiry" "middle years" OR "upper primary school" OR "elementary students" "science"
This search produced 105 results. Not bad!
As I scanned through a couple I noticed that I had accessed quite a few of these sites and journals before in other quests.
I wanted to refine this more...so after looking carefully at the frequency of the key terms in the abstracts for the various websites..I noticed that Social Science was an area that kept cropping up..so I went all Boolean on the search and included a "not" by using the -"social science" and voila!
"inquiry based learning" "guided inquiry" "middle years" OR "upper primary school" OR "elementary students" "science"-"social science"
Produced 92 hits!
Getting there!
By adding "information literacy" into this Boolean equation, it narrowed the search considerably:
"inquiry based learning" "guided inquiry" "information literacy" "middle years" OR "upper primary school" OR "elementary students" "science"-"social science"
produced 8 hits, ( as can be seen in the screen capture below) : two of which I had my eye on in previous searches.
So I will begin to peruse at least two of these PDF journal extracts...I think I may be onto something!
Actually feeling a little encouraged by this particular search!
M Lakkala - 2008 . Principles of Progressive Inquiry: -retrieved on September 17 2011
No comments:
Post a Comment