Shared Foundation I: Inquire

 

I:  INQUIRE

What is interesting about the 6 shared foundations are that they can all be seamlessly intertwined into what exceptional school librarians do every day.  I think the Inquire foundation, is one that all educators strive daily to implement into our teachings.  We want our students to be curious and ask questions about the world (and their learning experiences), to be able to evaluate information critically, and to effectively solve problems.  Giving students the building blocks needed to think critically starts with the inquiry process.    

According to the American Association for School Librarians standards (2018), school librarians teach others to display curiosity and initiative when seeking information, promote new knowledge, maintain focus throughout the inquiry process, and implement and model an inquiry-based process" (p. 68).  In this foundation, the teacher does not "force feed" students information, but the students take more ownership in their learning and are intrinsically motivated to learn more about a topic of their interest.  

When speaking with Ms. Rivers (a school librarian at E. B. Ellington), she specifically mentions the domains think and grow.  She encourages her students to make connections between the material that is being learned and how that information relates to them in the real-world.  She gives an example of how students often relate to the actions/thoughts of a character.  Next, they critically think about what they would have done and/or if they would have done things differently (from the character).  While learning, students can use the knowledge that they know and can expand upon that knowledge by creating new meaning.  I think this inquiry process is heightened when students can inquire about topics in a safe space, like the school library and are able to have conversations about what they are learning with others (students, teachers, etc.) to obtain even deeper meaning and to promote critical thinking via questioning.  What are additional ways to promote inquiry in students? Have you heard of "Makerspaces"?  Hopefully, I have piqued your curiosity a bit and you would like to learn more.

Ms. Rivers uses her Makerspace (a place for students to explore, learn, share, etc.) to help students to grasp the lesson's objective. For example, she collaborated with a 5th grade teacher and her class while they were studying oceans and landforms.  She invited everyone into the library for a virtual reality experience.  Most students have a phone, that they value highly, and students are always excited to use them.  Ms. Rivers used each student's cellphone and paired it with Google's Cardboard to create an immersive experience, in the comfort of their school's library.  Students were able to see the ocean and landforms (in 3-D) and this sparked interesting and authentic, student-led conversations.  This is inquiry and technology merged together, at its finest!  

Meeting the needs of all of the learners, with inquiry methods, are not always easy because all children are not the same.  Ms. Rivers explained that many of the students in a class are on varying levels.  The initial stages of inquiry may be simplistic enough for all students to accomplish but what happens when the critical thinking and problem solving becomes more challenging?  At some point, there comes a time when some students find this level of work to be more challenging and cannot keep up with their peers.  This has caused challenges for Ms. Rivers.  I think that this is a perfect solution for this shared foundation.  It helps students to work together, fill in missing gaps of knowledge, and to learn cooperatively from each other.  That is what inquiry is all about... the process of using the knowledge that one has, creating new meaning, and using that information critically and in new ways to solve problems and/or to lead to new discoveries!  

References

American Association of School Librarians. (2018). National school library standards for learners, school librarians, and school libraries. ALA Editions, an imprint of the American Library Association.

GIPHY. (n.d.). Reaction [GIF]. GIPHY. https://media.giphy.com/media/RhPvGbWK78A0/giphy.gif