Starting Next Round Of Personal Research
开始下一轮的个人研究项目
I learn most when I’m challenged to justify or explain the rationale behind my classroom practice and the choices about the tasks I set for my class. The challenge can come in the form of a blog post that questions, a comment response that draws assumptions or a reflective research tool that has me watching a DVD of one of my lessons and coding it according to researched guidelines. And as a learner, I don’t always come with a satisfactory answer but every challenge helps.
我为班级设置课堂练习并选择任务，当这些练习和选择背后的原理的证明或解释受到质疑时，是我学得最多的时候。这些质疑可以来自于网络日志形式的提问，一份对我提出假设或反思研究工具的评论回复，在这篇文章中有我观看课程DVD，并根据研究指南对其进行编码。作为一名学习者，我并不总能拿出一份令人满意的答案，但是每一项质疑都能帮助我更接近满意。
I’ve used inquiry research projects in my classrooms for over ten years now - initially when it was called Resource Based Learning, then rebadged as Problem Based Learning when I moved to my current school and now referred to as the inquiry approach. I’ve used models including McKenzie’s Research Cycle, our local TSOF (RIP) model then to the recent work in this area by Kath Murdoch. Ten years ago when I team taught with one of the most innovative (and influential) teachers I’ve come across, we both developed the rationale that inquiry work (RBL was our name at the time) was great in terms of allowing students choice and control in their learning but adding the final presentation in front of their peers added another layer of purpose to their work. We both trialled webquests with our classes in and around 1999/2000 but found that the process was too scripted and the reliance on Web-only resources to be too restrictive.
在我班上使用调查研究项目已经超过十个年头了——最初被称为基于资源的学习，随后当我来到现在这所学校，更名为基于问题的学习，现在则被称为调查方法。我曾经使用过的模型包括麦肯锡的研究周期、我们本地的TSOF（RIP）模型，然后是默多克最近在该领域的工作。十年前，我和我所遇到的最具创新性（和影响力）的教师共同教书的时候，我们共同制定了该调查工作的基本原理（RBL就是我们在这个时候命名的），可以让学生很好的选择并控制他们的学习，但是为其工作添加了另外一层目标——在其伙伴面前做最后陈述。1999-2000年间，我们在班上尝试过WebQuest，但是发现这个过程太死板，太依赖于网络资源，从而限制太多。
Students would do their own RBL topics - sometimes it was glorious success (I recall a 1997 presentation on The Wolf by a Year Six girl where she role played a wolf, had her best friend read scripted questions as a news reporter and the research findings flowed from this fictional interview) or dismal failure. An unmotivated student back in 1999 simply drew a lopsided pyramid on the white board in texta and trotted his theories about aliens constructing the pyramids. And the class was so well versed in the art of positive feedback and constructive criticism (my diplomatic nature coming to the fore) that after the silence that ensued, the first comment was, “I really like your pyramid drawing.”
学生会做他们自己的RBL课题——有时候会取得很大的成功（我记得在1997年，有一位六年级女孩做的关于狼的陈述，他在这里扮演了一只狼，他的好友作为新闻记者朗读准备好的问题，研究发现就在这个虚拟的访问中滚滚而出。）或者恐怖的失败。早在1999年，一个无心学习的学生，就在黑板上简单的用文字画一个歪歪斜斜的金字塔，糊弄出他有关外星人建造了金字塔的理论。班上同学是如此熟练于积极反馈和建设性批判（我的交际能力就来自于此），以至于只是稍作冷场便发挥作用，第一条评论是：“我真的很喜欢你画的金字塔。”
Of course, the use of the internet has been a boon to this form of learning as the students are not just limited to what the school library has in stock. Which also means the issue of teaching effective digital literacy skills becomes of utmost importance. So, the final presentation became a purpose for all of the questions and answers. It was superior to handing in something to the teacher because the audience expanded to their classroom colleagues. The presentations started to evolve as the technology at the students’ disposal became easier to utilize. We went from student prepared overheads to handouts to designed displays then to booking the computing room so that the data projector could be utilized. With the move to a new school, it seemed the inquiry learning approach was a low priority and it has been part of my role to infuse it into teachers’ practices - with varying success.
当然，互联网的使用，为学生学习的方式带来很多好处，而不是被限制在学校图书馆的存货局限之中。这也意味着有效数字化生存技能教学的问题变得极其重要。因此，最终陈述成为了所有问题和答案的目标。它的优势在于传递某些东西给教师，因为听众的范围扩展到其同事。该陈述已经变得更易于使用，开始逐渐成为可由学生随意支配的技术。我们从学生学习支架到讲义到有计划的展示，接下来预约计算机房，以便使用数据投影仪。到新学校之后，似乎并不强调研究性学习方法，并已成为我教师实际工作的一部分——并带来各种成功。
With the advent of interactive whiteboards in the school and a very inspiring session as part of our Middle Schooling cluster, I began the idea of Personal Research Projects with my class where the students could research a topic of their choice that would be geared towards a peer presentation. This started last year when I combed the SACSA S.O.S.E outcomes tracking general topics as a starting point and the inquiry process was combined with a student initiated approach.. Students could make a choice about their topic and their research process was then geared towards a final presentation to their classmates. Then this year under the guiding principles of our recently Middle Years Learning Unit vision which has the development of student initiative as one of its desired outcomes. To that end, the Personal Research Projects (renamed as to not be confused with the IB version of Personal Projects which has a very different focus) were introduced for all four of the MYLU classes with the general choices of (a) your own choice, (b) something new and (c) something from the wider world spread over terms two to four.
随着交互式白板进入学校，我们一些中学开始了一个非常鼓舞人心的学期，我在班上开始这个个人研究项目，学生们可以研究他们选择的课题，并做出一份面向伙伴的陈述。这开始于去年，当时我从分析常规课题为出发点，梳理了SACSA SOSE 成果，该研究过程与学生一种自己的方法相结合……学生可以选择他们自己的课题和研究过程，然后面向同学做出最终陈述。接下来，今年处在我们最近几年学习单元愿景——发展学生的进取心是其目标成果之一——的原则指导下。为达到这一目的，向所有四个MYLU班级介绍了个人研究项目（改名是为了不与IB版本的个人项目相混淆，那是一个侧重点有很大不同的项目），并给出了一般选择：（甲）你自己做出选择，（乙）一些新东西，（丙）来自更广阔世界的东西，为期两到四个学期。
I’ve already blogged about the Term Two projects from my room so my original intent was a quick update on my students’ start to this term. There was some professional disagreement around our learning team table about how to structure and start the Term Three theme of something new. As my role includes leading out in any area to do with information literacy, I devised a student driven way to determine new topics. With my class, I discussed the idea that for something to be really new, you would to need to barely know anything about the topic and in fact, you might not even know that it exists. So here’s what we did.
我已经在日志中记录了来自于我班上的两个学期的项目，这样我最初的意图就因为学生在这个学期的开始而快速更新。围绕我们的学习团队有一些专业分歧，设计如何建构和开始三个学期的新课题。由于我的任务包括在任何领域使用信息技能，我设计了一种学生驱动的方法来决定新课题。在我班上，我们讨论具有真正新意的思路，你可能仅仅大概知道有关该课题的所有东西，而事实上，你可能甚至都不知道它的存在。这就是我们要做的。
Every student had a sheet of paper and I decided that this term I would join in the process and produce a Personal Research Project of my own. On this paper, each student wrote down topics that they had covered in the past then we rotated the papers around the room. In 30 second bursts, each student would suggest a new topic for their peer from a broad list of categories we brainstormed up on the interactive whiteboard. There’s a bit of pressure involved to get something down so not all suggestions were inspired but it was very interesting to see what did get on the list and considering there were 30 kids trying to produce 30 unique topic lists (that’s 900 potentially unique topics!) it went pretty well.
每个学生都有一张纸，我决定这个学期我将参加到过程当中，并形成一个我自己的个人研究项目。在这张纸上，每个学生写下他们以往所涉及的课题，然后全班交换这些纸张。我们在交互式白板上，利用头脑风暴，列出大量分类，用三十秒的时间，每个学生都会为其伙伴从中建议一个新课题。拿下一个课题还是会有些压力，因此不是所有建议都会起作用，但是看看从列表中能得到什么，并考虑到这里有三十个孩子尝试形成三十个唯一的课题清单（这样就可能有九百个唯一的课题），还是非常有意思。运作得很好。
[My list - basketball, sport, orchestra instruments, soccer, transport, football, Malaysian food, squash, air dynamics, planes, ice hockey, cats, cricket, ancient foods, our school, tennis, movie directing, swimming, sewing, golf, the Great Wall of China, Who invented the clock?, Fashions of the 80’s.]
【我的清单——篮球、运动、管弦乐、足球、运输、美式橄榄球、马来西亚食品、壁球、空气动力学、飞机、冰上曲棍球、猫、蟋蟀、古代食品、我们学校、网球、电影导演、游泳、缝纫、高尔夫球、中国长城、谁发明了时钟？八十年代的时装。】
The students then narrowed down their possibilities to two or three that looked interesting. You can see mine are bold underlined. Armed with their final choice, we headed to the computing room where the students used Quintura and Kartoo to generate key word mind map diagrams to assist with the start of their research. See these diagrams as an example of how the key words were generated by the visual search engines.
然后，学生将选择的可能性缩小到两到三个看上去感兴趣的。你可以看到我的粗体下划线的。最后选定以后，我们去计算机房，学生们用Quintura和Kartoo生成关键字思维图，来帮助他们开始研究。这些图作为例子，看如何由视觉化搜索引擎生成关键字的。
So I think that my kids are off to a good start. But as I wrote earlier, there was not consensus about this approach when I introduced it to my learning team colleagues. Riding on last term’s success and buoyed by the fact that the students had developed some promising research and presentation skills and were highly motivated by the control they had over their work, I was surprised that some of the team wanted more say in what the students in their classes would be working on. Their point of view that something new could be decided upon by the teacher because that choice would in fact be new, and they would allocate choices within that topic. It was hard to argue against because their choice was to look at charities and community programs (Guide Dogs, Amnesty, Doctors Without Borders etc.) and that is a worthwhile thing for students to be looking at. I suppose I felt (as did my planning partner) that the student initiated component is too important to disregarded. Sure, if one of my students wanted to investigate a charitable organisation, fine, but for me the process of investigation and questioning and constructing learning with a purpose in mind is more important than all kids being “guided” into a defined area of focus. Another example that not all teachers see things in a particular way or necessarily value different aspects and approaches in equal ways.
因此，我认为我的孩子们开了一个好头。但正如我前面所写，当我将其介绍给我学习小组的同事时，他们并不认同这种做法。依靠上学期的成功和事实的支持，学生们发展了一些有希望的研究和报告技能，由于学生能够掌控他们的工作，故而热情高涨，我很惊讶，某些小组想要在课上得到更多发言权。他们的观点认为，一些新东西应该由老师来决定，因为这种选择以前从未遇到过，并且他们也愿意分配课题的选择权。这很难让人反对，因为他们的选择要研究慈善事业和公众项目（导盲犬、大赦组织、无国界医生组织等），而这，都是很值得学生去研究的事情。我想我觉得（正如我的计划合伙人所做的那样）学生们所倡导的东西实在太重要以至于无法忽视。的确，如果我的某位学生想要研究一个慈善组织，很好，但是对我而言这个在头脑中带有目的地去研究、提问和建构学习的过程，远比所有孩子被牵引到一个已经界定好了的重点领域，更重要。另一个例子是，并非所有教师都以相同的方式，或必然的不同方面，以及平等的方式看问题
Anyway, to wind this post up, I have stated before that I was particularly impressed with the presentation process and that consideration was given to audience needs in their accompanying slides. I emphasised the “more is less” approach which is exactly some of the advice being offered by Dan Meyer in some of his great posts on slide design. I wandered into Christian Long’s blog post where he was exploring aspects of one of Dan’s more recent posts - it seems I’ve been commenting there a fair bit this week. I used his general theme of innovative use of slides in the classroom to expand on why I think my students’ presentations were a great learning experience.
无论如何，为了完成这篇文章，之前我曾声明过，我对这个陈述过程印象非常深刻，因为在其配套幻灯片中考虑到了观众的需求。我强调“贵在简单”原则，而这正是梅丹在其有关幻灯片设计的优秀文章中所提倡的建议。我曾经阅读过龙桂群的日志文章，在这里，他探索了梅丹更多近期文章的各个方面——似乎我在这个星期得到一点儿评论。我在班上使用他的幻灯片创新使用的通用主题，详述为什么我认为我的学生陈述是非常好的学习体验。
….the lense with which I want to examine your take comes from my own classroom and our “Personal Research Projects” program that I have led out alongside our middle school teachers. Using an inquiry-centred learning approach, my students developed presentations on a topic of their own choice over the course of two months. I blogged about the process recently so I won’t go through the details here but I tended to err on the side of guidance rather than requirements. I wanted the students to find their own way through, be open to advice and be prepared to have their presentation critiqued by their peers. So I know that when you describe the “Death by Powerpoint” presentation classroom, it’s not mine and I dare say there are many teachers like me where the end product is just the start of the conversation. With my students, we negotiated together what we believed good presentations to be about. We designed a rubric that the kids themselves would use during the presentations. I talked about the slides complementing their research, that clear well chosen images convey meaning that excessive text cannot, the importance of considering your audience’s needs and how eye contact conveys respect to your audience.……我想看看你取自我班上的镜头，以及我们与初中老师同时进行的“个人研究项目”程序。使用一个以调查研究为中心的学习方法，我的学生们准备了一次陈述，涉及到他们自己选择的课题，耗时两个月的课时。我在网络日志上记录了最近的一次过程，在此不再详述，但我容易在指导而非需求上出现错误。我希望学生找到他们自己的解决办法，能够接受意见，做好准备接受来自同学对其陈述的批评。我还知道，当你说到《PowerPoint之死》课堂演说的时候，那不是我的，我敢说有许多老师跟我一样，最终产品仅仅是才开始的一次会谈。和我的学生一起，我们一起协商，我们心目中的好演讲是什么样的。我们设计了一份孩子们自己在演讲过程中使用的量规。我所说的这些配合他们研究的幻灯片，明确而精心挑选的图像传达着大量文本所不能传达的含义，考虑你观众的需要，以及目光接触如何传递你对观众的尊重，这很重要。
You ask in your post “…are they really demonstrating anything that resembles learning?”你在你的帖子中问道：“……他们真的展示什么类似学习的东西了么？”
My oath, they were.我发誓，是的，他们展示了。
Yes, Powerpoint was the choice of every student (but not mandated by me) and as they watched each presentation, the learning was there in masses. It was there in the feedback that the students gave each other, scaffolded initially by me, but when students say comments like, “I wasn’t interested in Roman History before your presentation but now I want to know more”, it’s pay dirt. It happens when the students who can’t resist the call of the animated bullet points, clicking through them furiously because they’ve just realised they don’t add anything to their message. It happens when a student proclaims an animé drawing as their own work scanned into a slide but someone eagle eyed spots the plagiarism via a watermarked URL on the corner of the slide. It happens when a well intentioned student’s presentation goes over the twenty minute mark because they didn’t want to leave anything out only to realise that they’ve lost the interest of the class. Done tactfully, which is where teacher guidance is crucial, the conversation emanating from these presentations has initiated and cemented learning about the research process, the importance of citing sources, catering for your audience’s learning needs and yes, learning that “less is more” when it comes to conveying meaning, ideas and information across to your peers.是的，每个学生都选择了PowerPoint（不是我指定的），并且正如他们看到的每一堂陈述一样，学习存在于每一处。学生彼此之间都做出了反馈，最初的支架是我做的，但是当学生们正如评论所说，“在你陈述之前，我对罗马史不感兴趣，但是现在我想知道更多。”这个发现很了不起。当学生不能抵抗活泼的重点列表的呼唤时，学习就发生了，他们努力的在网上爬行，因为他们刚刚明白他们没法添加任何信息。当一名学生宣布，他们独立扫描的一幅卡通绘画添加到幻灯片中，但是有人通过幻灯片角落的一条带水印的链接敏锐地辨认出这是一份剽窃品，学习就发生了。当一名学生的用心良苦的陈述超过了二十分钟的限制，因为他们不想丢掉任何东西，最终却丢掉了全班同学的兴趣时，学习就发生了。教师的引导要很巧妙，这很关键，由陈述引发的讨论已经开始并和有关研究过程的学习相融合，引用出处的重要性，迎合观众的学习需求，是的，学习，当在同学之间传递含义、思路和信息的时候，“简约就是美”。
Christian then reminded me of the importance of constraints (and maybe that’s where my differing learning team colleagues reside in their thinking.)
龙桂群接下来提醒我约束条件的重要性（可能这就是我不同学习小组的同事思维永远不变的原因）。
The passion and intentionality of your approach with using PPt with your kids is to be commended on many levels. Best of all is your conviction that the ‘process’ itself was more powerful than the end result, and by process I mean in ‘review’ as much as in ‘creation.’你为孩子们使用PPT方法的激情与意图可以在很多层面上得到赞赏。这里面最好的是你的信念，即“过程”本身比最终结果更为重要，而在过程当中，我觉得“评阅”和“创新”一样重要。
Like you, Dan’s posts/ruminations on the power of good design in teacher work has also compelled me to be far more intentional when working with PPt, etc. His expertise and passion for design/presentation may define his role in the larger edu-blogosphere for some time to come (in addition to his clear math’pertise).和你一样，梅丹对于教师工作中良好设计的威力的反思帖子，也迫使我在使用PPT等工作的时候做更多的规划。他在设计/演讲方面的专业知识和热情，为他今后一段时期在更大的教育博客圈子里面界定了角色（也包括他清晰的数学能力）。
All I will add to your original comment is that while ‘process’ is vital (and the ‘discovery’ that comes with it), the clear ‘constraints’ we put on the project offer significant value as well (and ‘challenge’). If our kids think always in terms of audience (both in and out of the class, regardless of ‘grades’), then the ‘constraints’ are tied to the audience’s needs and willingness to pay attention/care. Yes, we want kids to co-create the process, but we also want them to know WHY they are doing what they are doing…and constraints give us a place to push against, as opposed to limits.我要添加在你原始评论后面的是，虽然“过程”很重要（以及随之而来的“发现”），但是我们施加在项目上的明确的“限制”也具有重大意义（以及“挑战”）。如果我们的孩子始终从观众的角度思考（包括进出课堂，不再考虑“分数”），那么，限制观众需求和意愿的“限制条件”就会得到关注。是的，我们希望孩子们在活动中合作，但是我们也希望他们知道为什么他们要做这些……并且，限制条件给了我们一个超越限制的场所。
And I while I am sure that my process had its constraints in place, his point to me means that clearly documenting and justifying the purpose of the project is as crucial as allowing the students freedom to explore what they see as interesting and important. Especially at this age (10 -12 year olds) their first taste of choice based learning can be a heady experience and not everyone bounces back easily from a rocky landing if they get their process wrong, burn time chasing unimportant details or misread my verbal suggestions. Cushioning in terms of clear written guidelines, explicit demonstrations of process and regular reviews of progress will give every student a shot at the glowing feedback and satisfaction of an attentive and interested audience.
虽然我很确定在我过程的某处也有限制，他的观点对我而言意味着，清楚的记录和证明项目的目的，和让学生自由的探索他们所看到的有趣东西和重要东西，同样重要。尤其在他们这个年纪（10-12岁），第一次尝试基于选择的学习，会成为破坏性的体验，如果他们的过程出错，浪费时间追逐琐碎细节或错误理解我的口头建议，不是每个人都能在跌倒后轻松爬起的。按照清晰的书面指导、明确的过程演示和逐步的定期回顾进行缓冲，将会让每个学生有可能得到专心的、感兴趣的观众给出的热烈回应并感到满意。
It would be great if the choice quote of last term’s presentations became commonplace.
如果该选择引用了上学期的陈述，并且显得很平常，那就非常好了。
“I wasn’t interested at all in Roman History but your presentation has made me want to find out more.”“我以前对罗马史完全不感兴趣，但是你的陈述让我想了解更多。”
Year 6 female student offering verbal feedback to Year 5 male student, Term 2, 2007.2007年二学期，六岁女生为五岁男生给出的口头回应。
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8 Responses to “Starting Next Round Of Personal Research Projects”
《开始下一轮的个人研究项目》8条回复。
http://gwegner.edublogs.org/2007/08/08/starting-next-round-of-personal-research-projects/
August 9th, 2007 at 11:20 am
Wow, what a fantastic post, full of examples and ideas. You are so generous with your blogging, Graham
哇！这是一篇精彩的帖子，这么多范例和创意。老魏，你在写作上真大方！
August 9th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Jo, it’s a bit like baring your soul at times - but, I cannot talk about teachers needing to open about their practice and learn by reflecting on their teaching if I don’t do it myself. Part of it is also having enough guts to admit that not everything flows as it should, than there is always room for improvement and that unconscious hypocrisy runs through every teacher’s veins.
乔，有时候这就像敞开心怀——但是我并不是说教师需要在反思教学的时候公开谈论他们的实践和学习，事实上我就没有这样做。部分是因为要有足够的勇气承认，并非所有事物都会按计划进行，相反总有可改进的余地，并且每个老师的心底都有自己所不知道的虚伪。
August 9th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
The choice/constraints issue is a very tricky thing to manage, and I’m glad you mentioned it. A good project has some of each, I believe, and finding that balance is key. I especially liked the quote at the end. What I want to see in my own students is the realization, for themselves, that they’ve changed, been enlarged somehow, and accomplished something that they didn’t think they could do before they started. I’m organizing my classroom this week getting ready for meetings and planning (for real) next week. Gearing back up. This was helpful.
在管理中，选择/限制问题是一件非常棘手的事情，我很高兴你能说出来。一个好的项目两样都会有一些，我想，找到平衡是关键。我尤其喜欢文章末尾的引文。我想在我自己的学生身上看到的东西是，为了他们自己做出成就，他们有所变化，在各方面都有进步，并且完成了一些东西，而他们在动手之前认为自己无法完成。我这周组织我的班级准备会议，为（真实的）下周做计划。多做回顾。这很有用。
August 9th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Helping schools plan student inquiry so we avoid “all the children are lost in a tunnel of goats” learning outcomes is part of the day job and close to my heart Graham
帮助学校规划学生探究，这样我们可以避免“所有孩子都挤到一堆”，每天都要产生一份学习成果，老魏，这让我很感兴趣。
I think when we undertake inquiry with young kids we have to be pretty clear about our purpose – if we are after “learning” then most of us would accept that learning involves a change in long term memory – and although I am certain that many of our students are “engaged” during inquiry learning I am uncertain whether inquiry in schools often leads to any significant changes in content or process memory of the students involved -
我觉得，当我们研究你的孩子们的时候，我们必须非常清楚我们的目的——如果我们在“学习”之后进行，那么我们大多数都会接受学习涉及改变长期记忆这个观点——即使我很确定我们许多学生在研究学习过程中很“忙碌”，我不确定学校内的研究是否能导致学生所涉及的内容或过程上的任何重大改变。
Since we still have no research to show that students who experience inquiry based learning environments have an understanding that is deeper, more integrated, more coherent and at a higher level of abstraction than students who learn in “one size fits all” environments – when we choose inquiry over other pedagogical approaches we should be mindful of the problems identified with inquiry learning
由于我们一直没有研究表明，基于学习环境体验探究的学生，与在“一刀切”环境中学习的学生相比，对知识的理解程度是否更深、更完整、更连贯，并达到更高层度的抽象水平，当我们选择基于其他数学方法的研究，我们应该留心研究性学习带来的问题。
The things we ask our teachers to consider when they are planning inquiry topics for kids is how they will avoid the following:
我们要求我们老师考虑，当他们为孩子们规划研究性课题的时候，他们是如何避免以下问题的：
1. Learners experience a cognitive overload when they need to do both “knowing that” AND “knowing how” thinking. Stahl et. al recommend that students gain at least an overview of content knowledge in the area before research begins. (Otherwise they “research” to learn content and tend to add little new if first source is informative/easy to understand, including ignoring conflicting evidence etc). This suggests students using research to learn new concepts may compromise using it to learn research competencies.
1. 当学习者需要同时“知其然”并且“知其所以然”的时候，他就能体验到认知超载。斯塔尔等人建议学生在开始研究之前至少应获得该领域的内容概述。（否则，当第一来源很丰富、易于理解的时候，他们就会“研究”学习内容，并倾向于增加一点儿新东西，包括忽略矛盾的证据等。）这暗示了学生使用研究来学习新概念，可能会危害到用其学习研究能力。
Stahl, S., Hynd, C., Britton, B., McNish, M., & Bosquet, B. (1996). What happens when students read multiple source documents in history? Reading Research Quarterly, 31 (4), 430-456.
斯塔尔等人（1996）。当学生阅读多个来源的历史文档时，会发生什么事情？阅读研究季刊，31（4），430-456
2. There is all that …. unease over minimally guided instruction through constructivism and inquiry learning to consider - and teh realisation that inquiry is not suited to all abilities in the primary classroom
2. 这一切都是……通过建构主义和研究性学习需要考虑的，最低限度教学带来的不安——并且认识到在小学，研究性学习并不适合所有能力。
Mayer, R.E. (2004) Should there be a three strikes rule against pure discovery learning? Am Psych 59, 14
迈耶（2004）对于纯粹的发现式教学，是否应该有三个反对意见？《临床心理学》，59，14
Kirschner, P. A., Sweller, J. & R.E. Clark. (2006) Why minimal guidance during instruction does not work: Educational Psychologist. 41 (1) URL retrieved May 2006 from http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/Constructivism_Kirschner_Sweller_Clark1.pdf
柯续科等人（2006）为什么在教学中的最低限度并不起作用：《教育心理学》，41（1）2006年五月链接见上。
3.Then the real chance that at the end of the inquiry learners may not have been confronted with the “to be learned” material Klahr and Nigam Psych Sci 15 661 (2004)The equivalence of learning paths in early science instruction: Effects of direct instruction and discovery learning.
3. 然后，在探究结束时的真正机会，学习者可能并未面临克莱尔和倪淦“需要学习的”素材。《心理科学》15 661（2004）在早期科学教育中，学习途径的等价物：直接教育与发现式学习的效果。
4. De Jong at the 2006 ICCE 2006 Keynote Address in Beijing showed us research suggesting that learners overemphasise communicative activities in inquiry – that is - more time is spent on communicating the new learning than is ever spent on gaining the new learning in the first place - depends what you are after - new learning or mastering powerpoint presentations
4. 德容在2006年ICCE北京主题报告中显示，我们的研究暗示出，学习者过分强调探究中的交流活动——也就是说——大多数时间花在交流新知识上，而非放在第一位的获得新知识——这取决于你追逐什么——新的知识还是精通演示文稿。
5. And his research teams have shown that 15 to 19 year old learners have problems with ALL of the processes associated with inquiry – both transformative and regulative processes, which makes me fret over what younger students might be missing when they do inquiry
5. 并且他的研究团队显示，15到19岁的学习者在所有与探究相关的过程都有问题——包括转变和调整过程，这让我很担心年轻学生可能会在探究的时候迷失。
de Jong, T. (2006) Technological Advances in Inquiry Learning VOL 312 SCIENCE pp532-533
德容（2006）探究性学习中的技术性进步，《科学》312卷，pp532-533
We encourage our teachers in New Zealand to plan inquiry learning with great thoughtfulness – it is much harder work for teachers than direct teaching - all relevant cognitive processes are triggered and scaffolded for - and they work to ensure the right kind of domain is used – student inquiry for intuitive deep conceptual knowledge rather than operational factual procedural knowledge.
我们鼓励我们新西兰教师规划探究性学习的时候请谨慎——对教师而言这比直接教学更难——所有相关认知过程被触发，并为学生探究搭设了支架——并且他们的工作确保涉及到的领域是正确的——用于直观深刻的概念性知识，而非实际的业务程序性知识。
If the kids are after factual and procedural knowledge they’d be better of with pedagogies of direct instruction and practice.
如果孩子们追逐实际的、程序性知识，他们最好得到直接教学和实践的教学法。
Since all the reserach suggests that inquiry works best when kids are already experts in the domain – we do a lot of front loading, pre teaching etc ito ensure appropriate prior knowledge is available either with the co learner or in the system.
因为所有的研究表明，最好的探究工作是在孩子们已经成为领域专家的时候进行——我们已经做了大量的前端引导、预先教学等，以确保不论对于合作学习者还是整个系统，都有适当的预先知识可用。
Then and only then will kids get deep learning outcomes from the goals and questions they set themselves.
只有这样，孩子们才能从他们为自己设置的目标和问题中得到深入的学习成果。
Even enthusiastic inquiry learning teachers will acknowledge that inquiry processes take longer than direct teaching so finding the reliable and valid advantages of inquiry over other pedagogical approaches - and scaffolding the learning experiences for them - is pretty important
即使是狂热的探究学习教师，也承认探究过程比直接教学花的时间更长，因此，找到探究方法比其他教学方法更可靠的、有效的优点，并为学生们的学习体验搭设支架——是相当重要的。
August 9th, 2007 at 11:00 pm
Arti, I actually get nervous when you offer insight here on my blog because it’s offering my process warts and all that leaves me feeling quite vulnerable because of your day job expertise and background. You always point me towards great resources and I would have to admit that I do not read enough educational texts - when edubloggers quote Postman and Ilich and Gatto, I have no idea because I haven’t read any of their oft quoted work. (Actually likewise when Bill Kerr quotes Alan Kay.) I would actually be interested in your opinion on what we have done and whether I am actually kidding myself and wasting the kids’ time. Your points that you outline are exactly what I need to be thinking about (along with all the other things my job entails) and to get to specifics, I think it would be great to have a Skype chat with you if you could spare the time.
1. “Knowing that” if I understand it correctly is navigating a chosen topic successfully because the student has some familiarity and confidence in knowing where to look and knowing if something answers their question and “knowing how” is the process of generating questions, topics, collecting information, making sense of that information and then structuring it into a solution or maybe a presentation(???). Therefore, while working with a topic of their own choice the “knowing that” aspect works better than if they are then forced into a new topic where the familiarity factor is gone. It would be a bit like first getting kids to go from Point A to Point B in their own neighbourhood, then next time dropping them in a foreign city and asking them to go from A to B again. And if I am getting everyone in my class to pursue totally different topics, then the front loading is nearly impossible - all of a sudden my colleagues corralling their students into one topic with choices within that topic look pretty smart. However, if my goal is to get the kids thinking about effective ways to communicate information and ideas to others (mastering powerpoint or any sort of multimedia might be a goal
2. Your articles point to the concept of guided discovery being a superior method as opposed to minimal guidance discovery learning. Looking back at last term’s work I can see that the research part could be classified as the “discovery approach” while the modelling, explicit hands on design work, rubric driven presentation process the class worked on could be termed “guided discovery.” With a process and expectations for presentation (and yes, that is also worthwhile learning although it could not be reasonably be termed “inquiry”) in place, is abandoning the idea of a previously encountered topic a recipe for disaster because it will be impossible to “front load” 30 students at once? It certainly is easy to model expectations in how to communicate their final content - but is one topic for the whole class the way to go? How is that topic or issue identified? More questions for me as my high moral ground is swamped by the high tides of effective practice!
3. In a task that allows students to choose their own topic, the “to be learned” component is extremely difficult to standardise across the class.
4. This point seems to be challenging me (rightly so). What exactly do I want the students to gain from this exercise? How to communicate to others, effective public speaking, designing supporting visuals, giving appropriate feedback to others, preparing for the presentation - all worthy learning goals straight out of the English curriculum. What about the inquiry component? I suppose I was wanting to put the students in the position of being able to share interesting learning with their peers and expose them to ideas and topics that they might not naturally gravitate towards. This term’s approach was meant to be a challenge to expand their boundaries using inquiry questions to work towards gaining a basic understanding of a new concept and once again, share it with their peers. Are my expectations too high? I was working on the idea that there are so many possible things to explore that gaining skills that enable students to track down likely resources and navigate through the information overload with discriminatory skills would be a realistic way to impart information literacy skills.
5. Maybe my take is that the younger students start grappling with inquiry methodology then by the time they get to be 15 -19 years of age, they will be more proficient practitioners then those who have been hand fed information and concepts without any choice along the way.
It’s been a challenge for me to embrace my own “discovery learning” via the internet. I have been an online reader and investigator of ideas and topics for over a dozen years but leveraging the web using read/write tools has changed the way I can learn - like I’m doing right now. The “digital natives” I teach are not very information savvy - I am trying to get them manipulating and making judgements about the validity of their own interests and possible interests (you don’t know what you don’t know about!) - unfortunately, as Darren Draper wrote recently on his blog (I can’t find the exact quote), the more I blog the less I realise I know. You yourself, Arti, have pointed out that terrier-like, I interrogate my own practice and hold it up the light to see of it is on track. I know you wouldn’t waste your precious time leaving a comment that won’t be taken on board and while I can’t promise that I’ll plug all the holes in my inquiry practice in quick time, you can rest assured I know that they are there and need addressing. Thanks again for taking the time. I really appreciate and value it.
And Doug, we’d better consider Arti’s points well before we launch into any cross cultural exchanges!
August 10th, 2007 at 9:38 am
Here’s a bit of a thought I had earlier today, before I read Artichoke’s comment, which I think is worth careful study. The idea of there being a “how” and a “what” to consider in teaching refers to the need to account for both declarative and procedural knowledge, both of which are necessary in any creative endeavor. Depending on what you want kids to learn, you can hold one, both, or neither of those things constant. In other words, you can specify the subject matter, the process to be followed, or both, or none of the above. We get the “tunnel of goats” phenomenon when nobody knows what’s going on, but everyone seems to be busy with it. The way inquiry pedagogy has gained acceptance among progressive educators seems to be an example of what I learned yesterday is called politician’s logic: : Something must be done; this is something; therefore, we must do it. Reformers of all stripes put this principle to work on a regular basis.
Guided inquiry is a broad term that might involve the class and teacher in doing a whole group project that’s mapped out every step of the way - as a demonstration, more or less - so kids get the idea of what we want them to do. Loosening the reins a bit and allowing the kids choices of subject matter assumes that they know how to identify problems, ask focused questions, locate resources, test hypotheses, generalize conclusions, report their findings, and evaluate what they’ve learned. That’s a lot to ask of anyone who isn’t particularly interested or experienced. I think there are ways of leaving options open for choosing, but I also think that inquiry as a concept has to first be embraced by teachers as an overall stance toward everything they do.
Taking it slow, and keeping a tight rein seems like the only sensible approach. I am too loose, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, with the planning end to responsibly manage what would otherwise be chaos. And too often that’s what I get; things spin out of control even when I start out with a tight grip on them. Last year I had an aha moment when I discovered that the word ‘research’ means nothing to kids. Of course, there is also the possibility that inquiry itself is reduced to a cookbook response to a prompt. What’s the use of that?
The most concise way that I can express my current view of inquiry pedagogy, or any pedagogy, is to say that I prefer to see lots of structure, with just a little bit of wiggle room. I am not a specialist in any of this, and there are few examples of effective inquiry pedagogy in my personal experience, as both student and teacher. Direct instruction is sometimes the very thing necessary in order to move forward, and it needn’t be discredited as somehow regressive. In everything I do, I want to proceed with caution and skepticism. Even the sacred cow of constructivism is being roasted in my thinking these days. But that’s a story for another day.
August 10th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
[…] and New Zealand were making with it in their educational efforts. Moreover, I learned that students in these regions were truly being encouraged to actively participate in taking ownership of… My first impression was that once again, the US educational system was being outclassed. Further […]
November 16th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
[…] Does all that writing about things that are important to me personally detract from the curriculum? I don’t think it does. I do think, however, that it redefines what we mean by curriculum. It redefines the curriculum because it shows the students that any topic is of value if it studied in reflective manner, if it is approached as a field to be explored. Northrop Frye once said that “it takes a good deal of maturity to see that every field of knowledge is the centre of all knowledge, and that it doesn’t matter so much what you learn when you learn it in a structure that can expand into other structures.” In other words, knowledge is not a series of fragmented and carefully compartmentalized units (although school does a great job of presenting it that way). Young people who see that their teacher blogs about things he finds meaningful are more likely to see blogs as personal spaces where they can be themselves and explore ideas that are personally relevant. They begin to see their blogs as a powerful medium for research, communication, expression, and reflection. (For a very insightful glimpse into a classroom where personal engagement works very well, check out Graham Wegner’s Starting Next Round Of Personal Research Projects. […]