I'll Jump First

by Mary Ellen Daneels, Lead Teacher Mentor

Podcasts are an integral part of my continuing professional development. Through podcasts, I can keep on top of current events, learn from other educators, delve deep into social studies related content as well as pursue other interests outside of the classroom.

Imagine my delight when I was asked to be a guest on the Park Ridge-Niles District 64 Podcast, I’ll Jump First! The podcast is produced “by teachers for teachers”. The topic of our conversation was Questioning in the Classroom, more specifically engaging student voice in inquiry.

The 30+ minute conversation with District 64 Technology Instructional Coaches Megan Preis, Kevin Michael, and Mary Jane Warden delved into the opportunities and challenges of supporting K-12 classrooms in questioning. We also shared a bevy of resources that can be used by teachers to scaffold instructional shifts around the new Illinois Social Science standards and civic education requirement.

I hope you will give the episode a listen and follow these amazing educators on social media. District 64 is a leader in meaningful integration of technology to support student inquiry leading to informed action.

If you are looking for some resources to help you “jump” into engaging student voice in questioning, here are some of the resources we shared in our conversation — but you will have to listen to catch them all!

• The Question Formulation Technique from the Right Question Institute (RQI) is a great tool to help students generate questions for classroom use. RQI recently published an article featuring how the Question Formulation Technique has been used throughout Illinois to support our #CivicsIsBack work.
• Dan Fouts from Maine West High School has wonderful ideas of how to use big questions to support deep learning in his blog Socrates Questions.
• The Cult of Pedagogy podcast and blog by Jennifer Gonzalez is on the top of my podcast feed as it helps me think deeply and critically on my own classroom practice.
• I have found that the Q Matrix from Kagan Cooperative Learning is a great tool to help students start questions at various Depths of Knowledge.
• What is Inquiry Based Learning? John Spencer has a short video that explains it all in under 5 minutes!
• To love me is to love the Root Cause Tree. The Teaching Channel’s new series, Educating for Democracy in a Digital Age, has lesson plans and video clips scaffold to student inquiry into the systemic “roots” of community issues.
• Visible Thinking strategies from Harvard’s Project Zero are quick routines that can be incorporated throughout the inquiry process.
• The 5 Whys Technique helps classrooms ask deeper questions to students become problem solvers.

What strategies have you used to support student inquiry and questioning in the classroom? Please comment below. Together, we can support ALL students in college, career and civic life success.