"As they contemplate the assignment, they may draw on previous experience and talk with others about a possible approach to their research."
ISP Stage
In this first stage students are prompted to begin research on a topic or question. Students recognise they need information for this topic but are also very aware of their lack of knowledge. When the task is introduced, students may be puzzled and uncertain. Engaging in discussion about the task is important at this point. This discussion generally is based around relating the task to prior knowledge, for example, experiences, memories, connections and relationships (Kuhlthau 2004; Kuhlthau, Maniotes & Caspari 2007).Year 6 History Inquiry
The teacher initiates the inquiry process by announcing
the unit of study. The task of the first stage is to prepare for the decision
of selecting a topic. Students brainstorm and record their prior knowledge.
i.e. Who came to Australia after 1900 and why?
Through discussion, discover what students already know
about Australia since Federation, including the White Australia Policy and
immigration laws that followed. If
students have been working with the ACH they will have knowledge of Australia
from pre white settlement to 1900. If not then you will need to immerse them in
a short version.
Shared viewing of the interactive documentary Immigration Nation provides a strong
starting point for discussion.
ISP and WEB 2.0 in the classroom
In the classroom the teacher might begin to address the
inquiry question by presenting students with an AnswerGarden brainstorming
activity, asking children to add to the garden the countries that people in
their family came to Australia from. This gives a general class overview of
the immigrant groups which may be most easily accessible when gathering
information and personal stories. The teacher may export the AnswerGarden to
Wordle or Tagxedo to create a stimulus chart for display in the classroom, in a
virtual classroom or on an interactive whiteboard during discussion. The next
step in this stage would be to gather more explicit information about students
prior knowledge. Students may work individually or in small groups using a
think-pair-share strategy to build their own KWL using a Web 2.0 tool. This
begins to focus the investigation by finding out what students already know and
what they want to find out. At appropriate stages of the ISP students would
return to the KWL and add information to show what they have learnt.
Tools for students
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A video tutorial for setting up and AnswerGarden:
A tutorial for using Tagxedo:
This video tutorial is an introduction to using mindmeister for mind mapping:
A tutorial for using bubbl.us to create a mindmap:
