Reflective Essay for Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom

The most striking revelation I came upon while teaching new literacy skills was that students as young as the kindergarten age can and will benefit from learning a majority of the new literacy skills. In the beginning of the course I believed that teaching inquiry-based projects and developing essential questions would serve as a challenge for those, like me, who teach such young students. I am currently teaching kindergarten and I believe due to their age, the students I teach need a great deal of guidance with staying on task and actually depend on modeling and guidance to conduct all or most of all of their academic activities. In addition, the less we know about a subject, the less likely our questions are to be well formed (Thornburg, 2004). This is especially true for the kindergartners that I teach. Many of the students in my class have trouble tying their shoelaces, let alone formulating an inquiry-based question. Because inquiry is not the norm in many classrooms, students need to be taught how to formulate interesting questions. From various resources in this course, I began to realize that 21st century methods of learning such as inquiry based projects and the development of essential questions is not an easy task for early elementary teachers, but it can be done.

It requires a tremendous amount of repetition, guidance and modeling to get the students started with inquiry based learning. The easiest way to do this is for the first few projects to be based on questions formulated by the teacher (Thornburg, 2004). During the modeling process I use plenty of think-alouds where I am formulating questions I have about the content out loud as if the students are actually hearing the thinking that is occurring in my brain. Using teacher think alouds is a fabulous method for helping make explicit the in-the-head processes that expert inquirers use (Engleton & Dobler, 2007). Once you have students do a few projects based on your own questions, shift the responsibility of asking questions to them (Thornburg, 2004). Many of the lessons I developed for this course unit plan involved a plethora of activities that engage use of student’s background knowledge, pictures, and student interests to build graphic organizer charts such as the extended KWL chart. These images will inspire students to think deeply about the content of the charts we are creating. Images allow you to stand back from an observation and reflect (Thornburg, 2004). Educators who use the KWL framework, like those using project-based learning, are well on their way to teaching through Guided Inquiry. They have their students ask, "What do I know?" (K); "What do I want to learn?" (W); and "What did I learn?" (L). These questions are the seeds of a constructivist approach (Kuhlthau, C. C., Maniotes, L. K., & Caspari, A. K., 2007).This method proved to excite and increase student awareness of the content to be learned. I have learned from this course how beneficial inquiry based learning can be for all students.

As I continue to develop lessons for all subjects in the kindergarten classroom, I realize how important it is for these 21st century skills to be integrated into the curriculum. It is difficult to get started and requires thoughtful planning, yet I find the lessons are so much more exciting. It seems the students learn more than ever when they are involved with tasks that interest them and engage them in developing their own questions and finding the answers. As a teacher, I feel much more accomplished with helping the students to “learn how to learn” instead of just teaching and spouting out all of the facts they need to know. By developing lessons that suggest the students discover and explore what interests them regarding the content while utilizing cooperative learning skills, I am finding that the students are taking more ownership and pride with what they are learning. As a teacher, I am able to adapt and integrate these skills to any subject.

In conclusion, based on my experiences with the course I am currently taking at Walden University entitled Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom, I plan to pursue and develop my own information literacy and technology skills. By adding a professional goal directly correlated to the coursework, I plan to expand on the knowledge I have learned. I would like to stress the importance of developing lessons that help our students practice 21st Century learning skills that incorporate inquiry based learning and digital literacy in our school district. These lessons should impact all ages, even early elementary students, and facilitate students to learn how to conduct research and searches safely on the internet. To insure that my goal will be accomplished, I will join a 21st Century Learning committee that has been recently established within our district and express my views on the importance of integrating 21st century skills into the curriculum. I feel this committee will also assist me with learning new ways to integrate technology and 21st century skills from other colleagues. I would also like to become part of the team that develops the district’s internet use policy as I feel that we must be sure that there is a strong policy in place to protect both teachers and students and insure proper and appropriate use of the internet. Finally, another way I intend to accomplish this goal is by making sure that I am practicing technology and 21st century skill integration in my own classroom and encouraging this process in other classrooms. To do this, I will share the lessons I develop with my colleagues by showing them lessons or pictures and videos of the lessons in action. I might even ask teachers of other classes or grade levels to participate with my class. In addition, I plan to share the lessons on our school’s teacher share drive and post the pictures and videos of the lessons on our closed circuit TV announcements.

Works Cited

Engleton, M. B., & Dobler, E. (2007). Reading the Web. New York: The Guilford Press.

Kuhlthau, C. C., Maniotes, L. K., & Caspari, A. K. (2007). Guided inquiry: Learning in the 21st century. Westport: Libraries Unlimited.

Thornburg, D. (2004). Inquiry: The art of helping students ask good questions. (Executive Briefing No. 402). Retrieved September 2, 2009, from http://www.tcpdpodcast.org/briefings/inquiry.pdf