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My Professional Reflections Blog

Adventures in EdTech, Student Agency, Inquiry, and Coaching.

Making the Inquiry Cycle Tangible

3/21/2017

2 Comments

 
One of my personal goals this year was to make the inquiry cycle more visible and clear. As a PYP school we use Kath Murdoch's model of the inquiry cycle to guide us through each Unit of Inquiry with our students. ​This post will show you a couple of ways I have ensured this vision this year (both on paper and using technology). [Edit: I know that inquiry is not as linear and straight forward as this. Inquiry is messy. However, as a teacher with no formal training on the subject and with no one around me to assist in a way that I found helpful, this is what I came up with. This is what I have done for a year to ensure my own understanding of the inquiry cycle. Next year: more mess!]
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Year 5 pod display board
If you are unfamiliar, these are the steps:
1. Tuning In
2. Finding Out 
3. Sorting Out 
4. Going Further
5. Making Conclusions
6. Taking Action
I am currently writing a post about how I implement each step with my students (and how we incorporate technology) please stay tuned as it will be out soon! For now I will focus on how I have been using the inquiry cycle to assist planning and showcase our knowledge.
This year we have tried to keep as many units at 6 weeks as possible, with a focus on one stage of the inquiry cycle each week. The photo above is an ever-changing display board I made in the year 5 pod area to help keep us on track. The students love to see whose work gets posted each week. It has helped me and my students visually keep track of our process and how we are building and modifying our knowledge and skills each week.

In collaborative planning meetings,​ team members create two collaborative mind maps for each unit using www.MindMeister.com. This online tool lets us all work on the mind maps at the same time. One mind map shows the inquiry cycle to help plan ideas of what we could do each week. The other shows transdisciplinary links between the central idea/lines of inquiry and each subject area (specialists and homeroom teachers). Here are some Year 5 examples from our unit about space. Not all areas are fully developed in this example, and things change as students have new ideas/take new directions, but it will give you an idea of what we use as a working document (which will inevitably change next year when the same unit is repeated).
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Year 5 Unit 2 Inquiry Cycle Ideas
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Year 5 Unit 2 transdisciplinary links
How do you ensure use of the inquiry cycle in your classroom? What tools and technology assist you in doing this? I would love to hear your feedback and suggestions in the comments.
2 Comments
Abhishre AG
4/7/2020 01:23:20 pm

Hi Cindy !

I'm doing a PD on inquiry phases and cycles with some new PYP teachers. I understand this is a relatively old blogpost.

I really like the way you have mapped the learning focus to the various stages of the cycle.

I wish to know if you have a positive feeling about focusing on one stage of the inquiry cycle per week?

My evolving understanding has been that to achieve any particular LO (Conceptual understanding) we go through all the stages of the inquiry cycle.

But what you seem to have done here is go through the inquiry one stage of the cycle at a time.

Really appreciate your thoughts on this. If you have any more relevant resources to help me understand the inquiry cycles and phases in existence better please let me know.

It was great reading this !

Reply
Mumtaz
3/5/2022 12:37:26 am

Enjoyed and learned from the write up. Can you help with math integration.

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    Cindy Kaardal

    ​Passionate PYP Educator and EdTech Integration Coach in South Korea.

    Former PYP Coordinator and Head of Computing Curriculum/ICT.

    Apple Distinguished Educator 2019, Google Educator L2, Microsoft Innovative Educator, Book Creator and Seesaw Ambassador.


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  • Home
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