Wishing

As Callison points out, modeling effective use of the information inquiry process is an essential part of the a successful information literacy program (BB, p.9). As I think about my process and how I could turn it into an effective modeling activity for both students and teachers (thanks to Joe), I am pleased with the overall outcome of my inquiry project. I wish that I hadn't felt so rushed at the end, and that I had spent more time with my materials and with primary sources--specifically local farmers. I am thankful that I can use the information that I gathered--and that I have it in a neat format to take the next steps towards raising chickens.

I wish that I were more comfortable with the online organizational tools. I used Gliffy, however, as I mentioned earlier, I really don't like mind mapping--I find it to be a great deal of work and not particularly helpful to my thought processes, although I feel that I have to be open to it, because there are other students who will really gain a great deal from such tools and options. If you would like to see my first attempt at a Gliffy concept map you can see if here: http://www.gliffy.com/pubdoc/1497849/L.jpg

I keep coming back to the idea of modeling as I reflect on this Project, in Curriculum Connections Harada discusses the importance of teachers being able to model thinking (p. 62). As I discussed in another post, this modeling and helping students develop their questions, is something that I can certainly see using this inquiry project for. One of the most powerful learning experiences I had in the classroom with a group of 9th graders involved teaching and learning with them about Tangrams. They were all certain that they had no math skills and were going to fail in this class with me and my co-teacher, however, I developed lessons around this ancient game I had found materials on to connect with them in learning something new--something I knew nothing about. Through that learning we were able to develop such a strong learning community, because it was clear that we were all learning together--I was not the expert they had viewed me as--I was good at helping come up with the questions to explore, but as far as the puzzles went many of the students had far more expertise.