From Classroom-Followers to Techno-Inquirers!

From Classroom-Followers

to Techno-Inquirers!

Eric Kyle, Ph.D.

Interim Instructional Technologist

Assistant Professor, Theology

Director, Service-Learning

College of Saint Mary

Omaha, NE

1

Deepening Critical Engagement

with Online Technologies

Teaching Professor Conference

Boston, May 2014

[email protected]

• Content vs. Process Foci

• Overview of Instructional Design Methods

• Introduction to Inquiry-Based Pedagogies

• An Online World’s Religions Course: A

Case Example

• Closing Reflections 2

Introduction & Overview Where are we headed today?

3

Think-Pair-Share What are Some Differences Between Teaching…

Content Process Versus

4

Think-Pair-Share

Questions to Think About and Discuss...

Content Process Versus

What is similar about teaching one versus the other? Different?

Can teaching for both of these be integrated? If so, how? If not, why not?

Do the approaches/pedagogies for teaching each one differ? If so, how? If not, why not?

5

Instructional Design Methods What can we base our course designs on?

6

Instructional Design Methods Characteristics of Deep Learning

• What are these approaches to instruction

about?

• Purposes?

• How do they work?

7

Inquiry-Based Pedagogies An Introduction/Overview – Group Discussion…

• Commonly used in math and science classes

• Based partly on the philosophy that “humans

are born inquirers”

• Typically associated with constructivist

theories of learning

• They work to help students to develop their

own concepts and integrate these into their

existing background via critical inquiry

methods 8

Inquiry-Based Pedagogies An Introduction/Overview

9

Think-Pair-Share

Inquiry Processes: Questions to Think About and Discuss...

When you have a question that you want answered, what are some of the processes that you go through to answer them?

Or if you have a hypothesis that you want to test/explore, what are some of the methods that you use?

1. Problem, Phenomena, or Goal Orientation – students

begin to formulate questions and hypotheses as well as

reflect on their own current knowledge

2. Research, Experiments, and Data Collection from

Multiple Perspectives and Sources – they begin looking

for patterns and trends in these sources as well noting

commonalities and inconsistencies among them

3. Arguments are Made and Conclusions are Drawn -

students work to synthesize these explorations and locate

themselves amongst the larger landscape of possible

explanations, theories, and opinions 10

Inquiry-Based Pedagogies Three processes/phases of critical inquiry

• How can we, as instructors, support

students in these processes?

• How does engaging in these processes help

our students to learn the course content

better? Or do they? 11

Inquiry-Based Pedagogies Instructor Roles – Group Discussion…

• Obviously, it is supporting students in these processes

• However, these approaches have a greater emphasis on

ensuring that students are deeply engaging with these

processes than they do on the content itself

– Underlying Claim: Deep Learning Comes via Deep

Engagement with these Processes

• Types of support:

– Criteria for choosing which resources to explore

– Explaining each phase of the inquiry process to them

– Questioning their conclusions and offering counterexamples to

further stimulate research and critical reflection 12

Inquiry-Based Pedagogies What is the instructor’s role in these kinds of courses?

However….

13

Inquiry-Based Pedagogies Caution: Herding Cats is Not Easy!

Not all students will ask the same questions, engage in the

same processes, progress at the same pace, etc.

So, what are some ways to address this?

• Some Ideas…

– Break them into groups => manage less cats!

– Dictate some, or all, of the Inquiring Processes (i.e.,

provide the question, lead them through the processes,

etc)

– Others???

14

Inquiry-Based Pedagogies What is the instructor’s role in these kinds of courses?

• Right now, take out your Smart Phone, Laptop, iPad, etc

• Either:

– Visit this page: PollEv.com/inquirybased

– Text to: 37607, then in the message, first enter

472078 and then type your message

• And register your answer to the following question:

15

‘Poll Everywhere’ Think-Pair-Share

What (briefly) makes you

uncomfortable about using Inquiry-Based Approaches so far? What

questions do you still have?

• What themes do you notice in these responses?

• Other things to note:

– Each group’s response is recorded

– Every voice has the potential of being heard

– We can now respond to each one if we wanted to

• This then leads us into some of the benefits of

online courses…

16

‘Poll Everywhere’ Think-Pair-Share

Break…

• Online technologies provide one way to

effectively implement Inquiry-Based Classes

in light of these challenges

• THL 209 – “Ways of Faith” = an online

world religions class at a Catholic Univ. 17

An Online World’s Religions Course A Case Example

https://angel.csm.edu/default.asp

• Required general education undergrad course =>

how much will students retain in the long-term?

• Theology program objectives: Women’s issues,

Multiculturalism, and Critical Thinking

• World religions => need to address biases,

stereotypes, and misinformation

• Diverse student body – Catholic, Protestant

(Mainline & Evangelical), Agnostic, Atheist

18

An Online World’s Religions Course Why use an inquiry-based design for this class?

• For this class, the Core Question of inquiry was:

“What is Religion, Spirituality, or Faith?”

• Students would pursue their own understanding of

what religion/spirituality/faith is by exploring 4 of

the 5 major Religious Traditions of the world

• So, as they learn about each tradition, they would

be inquiring into this Core Question as well as

other more specific ones that were posed 19

An Online World’s Religions Course Given these, what was the focus of these skills?

• Using the three inquiry processes, these were adapted for

spirituality & religion:

1. Self-Awareness & Thorough Personal Reflections - Students will

be able to thoroughly reflect on and state their own thoughts,

feelings, assumptions, and biases for the course material

2. Research & Use of Specific References - Students will be able to

identify specific, reliable, and relevant resources for the topics

being explored and be able to incorporate these into their

reflections and claims

3. Synthesis & Self-Location - Students will demonstrate the ability

to synthesize the views of others as they state their own claims,

which will be critical, logical, and complete 20

An Online World’s Religions Course What were the primary critical inquiry skills used?

• For this class, there were three sets of Objectives

that were set:

– Content Objectives (2 objectives): focused on students

demonstrating a general knowledge of each Religious

Tradition they explore and being able to integrate this

basic knowledge into their response to the Core Question

– Inquiry-Skill Objectives (3 objectives): focused on each

of the skills sets

– Leadership Development Objectives (1 objective):

focused on their sharing their views as well as being able

to provide constructive feedback to one another 21

An Online World’s Religions Course Detailed Design: Objectives

• Based primarily on Constructivist and Cognitive

Science theories of learning, as well as Bloom’s

Taxonomy (all of these are closely related)

• The basic idea here is that their understanding of

religion/spirituality/faith will slowly build and

develop across the class as they learn about each

tradition by engaging with Inquiry Skills

• It is therefore deep engagement with the skills that

is intended to lead to deep learning in relation to

the Core Question 22

An Online World’s Religions Course Detailed Design: Learning Theories

• Across the class, there were a number of basic activities that

the students were required to engage, which included:

– Reading chapters out of a textbook

– Discussion Boards - where they were to answer reflection questions,

summarize and critically reflect on their research, and synthesize

their own positions in relation to certain topics

– Conducting research on special topics (Women’s Issues and

Religion & Politics)

– Participating in “special engagement” activities (choosing from the

following: watching documentaries, interviewing a practitioner,

participating in a spiritual practice, or visiting a religious

community)

– Developing an Outline throughout the class and using it to write a

Final Paper answering the Core Question 23

An Online World’s Religions Course Detailed Design: Course Activities

• Following a couple of introductory modules, the students

chose 4 Religious Traditions to explore

• They then followed the modules as they led them through

the following:

– Religious Traditions #1 & #3

• Part A: Exploration – read the chapter in textbook, take a quiz, and update the

Outline (i.e., use notes from the readings to add to the Outline)

• Part B: Special Topic – research and find one resource that depicts the religion’s

views on the topic, critically analyze this resource, and state their own final

location in relation to the topic

– Religious Traditions #2 & #4

• Part A: Exploration (same as above)

• Part B: Special Engagement (see previous slide)

24

An Online World’s Religions Course Detailed Design: Course Activities – How was it structured?

25


• Students were also divided into “Home Learning Groups”

(HLG) of 3-4;

– Students were therefore able to learn not only from a consistent

group of classmates (i.e., their HLG) but also from other HLGs

which they were grouped with and that rotated for each module

• Students were also allowed to choose the order to the

Religious Traditions that they chose to explore as long as no

one else in their HLG had the same tradition for the same

module

– This was intended to ensure that students were continually being

exposed to each tradition repeatedly throughout the course 26


• Recall that the goal is to help students to deeply

engage with the Inquiry Skills, but also that one of

the biggest challenges is in the extra work that is

needed on the part of the instructor to help facilitate

this

• Online technologies were an excellent fit for these

objectives and this course

• Since my time was not spent preparing for and

facilitating face-to-face activities, I could instead

focus my time on providing very detailed and

personal feedback to students on their Discussion

Board Posts and Outlines 27

An Online World’s Religions Course Detailed Design: Assessments & Feedback

• Here is an example of the kind of detailed feedback

that I try to provide to help coach each student

• This is a student’s first self-reflective post on what

they think they know about a specific Religious

Tradition (RT) before they begin learning about it:

– “My first weeks RT is Buddhism. I can honestly say that

I don't know a whole lot of anything about it. I know

that there is a Buddha and monks and I am not for sure

if I know that from movies or family or maybe something

in high school. I also feel like it is in India, My brother-

in-law has gone there a couple times and I feel as though

he has brought it up, but I just cannot remember.” 28


• Here is my response to this post:

– “Hi [Jane], good beginning reflections here. For future

posts, try to be more specific with your references. For

instance, you mention that some of your impressions of

Buddhism come from movies, can you think one

specifically? Nevertheless, good work overall.”

• Here is her post in the next Module:

– “With Judaism I think Jewish, and the first person

Jewish person I think of is Jesus…Also the other thing I

think of when it comes to Judaism is the Torah and bar

mitzvahs. The first movie that ever brought this to my

attention was The First Wives Club. Still to this day that

is something that I remember about the movie.” 29


• The goal with this coaching, as mentioned, is to

help students to embody each of the Inquiry Skills

more fully

• By creating assignments and Discussion Boards

that directly align with each of these Skills, I am

able to provide detailed feedback to help each

student 30


• Students are also asked to locate their own views on various

topics in relation to course material:

– “I defined spirituality as being the journey of trying to make yourself

the best person you can be, according to whatever standards or

rules you believe to be the best. I have learned that although

religion[s] vary [in] their principle beliefs, practices, history, and

"key players", many religions want their followers to strive towards

similar goals. Overall, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity (I haven't

studied this in class yet but I am Christian) all strive to be caring,

compassionate, giving, peaceful people. This gives me hope that

religions all over the world can learn to be tolerant of others.”

• Here, we can begin to see some of the higher order

integrative thinking characterized in Bloom’s Taxonomy

31

An Online World’s Religions Course Examples of Student Work: Synthesis & Self-Location

32

Think-Pair-Share

Inquiry Processes & Online Courses: What do think?

What is one or two new insights that you have learned from this session?

What surprised you?

What challenged you?

What are some strengths of these? Limits?

33

Think-Pair-Share

Inquiry Processes: Where and How Might They Work for You?

Pick one of your own classes that you might think about trying these pedagogies and technologies with.

Discuss what this course might begin to look like if you changed it.

What might some of the benefits of doing this be? Challenges?

Where might you begin to turn to for help if you decided to do this?

• Inquiry-based Pedagogies can be very

effective approaches for courses where there

is an emphasis on pursuing core questions

and helping students to learn critical skills

• Online courses are well-suited for these

because they allow the instructor to move

into more of a coaching role to help scaffold

students in these skills

34

Closing Reflections Benefits of Technology-Enhanced Inquiry

Questions, Comments, Insights?

35

[email protected]

https://csm.academia.edu/EricKyle

mailto:[email protected]

• These should focus on providing the

instructor and students with insights into

how deep the inquiring processes are being

engaged

• One might assess:

– Quality of hypotheses

– Reliability and relevance of supporting evidence

– Systematic consistency of claims being made 36

Inquiry-Based Pedagogies What do we assess in Inquiry-Based classes?

• Improved student reasoning ability, self-directedness, and

understanding scientific & research processes

• Students learn to better manage projects, clearly

communicate their findings and claims to one another, and

acquire knowledge on their own

• Students have also been found to retain course content

longer and reflect more deeply about their own knowledge

and are better able to transfer this learning to new contexts

• These approaches also appear to be equally effective across

cultures and have helped students to achieve greater gains

on inquiry tests including those students who began with

lower scores on standardized exams 37

Inquiry-Based Pedagogies Some of the noted strengths of these pedagogies

• Students may need scaffolding support to help

them with each of the critical inquiry processes

• If students are afforded the freedom to pursue their

own self-generated questions and hypotheses, there

is the potential for the class to simultaneously head

in many different directions

• As a result, depending on how a class is structured,

these classes can be much more time and labor

intensive for the instructor compared to direct

instruction pedagogies 38

Inquiry-Based Pedagogies Are there any potential limits?

• For Teachers:

– Systems can be used to track student inquiry processes

and empower them to make suggestions as students

continue to pursue their questions and hypotheses

– Online services, such as the Inquiry Learning Forum

(http://ilf.crlt.indiana.edu), exist so that math and science

teachers may support one another in improving their

engagement with these pedagogies

39

Technology Enhancements Help with deepening the level of inquiring minds

• For Students:

– These can help students to gather and manage large

amounts of data and information as well as to engage in

some of the inquiry processes such as analysis, pattern

identification, and results presentation

– Networking and collaborative support technologies also

exist and can connect students with content experts and

help groups to collaborate more effectively

– Advanced discipline-specific technologies, such as

Intelligent Tutoring Systems, can provide further advice

and scaffolding through each of the phases 40

Technology Enhancements Help with deepening the level of inquiring minds

Documents

From Classroom-Followers to Techno-Inquirers!