Let's Get Connected to Inquiry

Cumberland Valley FFA Takes on National FFA Convention

At Penn State, each semester has sixteen weeks and just like that Week 10 has come and gone with a fantastic National FFA Convention & Expo experience with my Cooperating Center, Cumberland Valley. During this trip I not only got to see our two teams for the Milk Quality & Products and Ag Communications Career Development Events (CDEs) win silver medals for their hard work this year, but I also got to see the awe in each of my students faces as they took in the sea of blue and gold in Indianapolis. This trip was not only a fantastic change of pace for #psuaged22 as we race towards Student Teaching, but a blessing in that it reminded me exactly why I want to be an agricultural educator; the students. 

As Week 11 approaches, I am thinking more about how I can help my students learn through Inquiry-Based Instruction. In this teaching method, educators are challenged to combine student curiosity and the Scientific Method to sharpen critical thinking skills and deliver content. Through this teaching method, students engage in a five step process known as Scientific Inquiry. Scientific Inquiry includes the following steps;

1. Question
2. Investigate
3. Use Evidence to Describe, Explain, and Predict
4. Connect Evidence to Knowledge
5. Share Findings

Looking toward Student Teaching in just a few short weeks, below are six connections that I have made to Inquiry-Based Instruction and my experience as a budding agricultural educator. 

The Cumberland Valley Connections

As I had the opportunity to investigate during the National FFA Convention & Expo, each of my students are unique and possess different learning styles. When using Inquiry-Based Instruction during my Student Teaching Internship, each of my students will be able to contribute to the Scientific Inquiry process through their strengths. This allows students with different learning styles and abilities to learn together.

While this teaching approach allows for flexibility in my student's learning, I will play a vital role in facilitating in which ways this to be effective for each of my students. A few ways that I can utilize Inquiry-Based Learning as a Student Teacher include starting the inquiry process, promoting student dialog, transitioning between small groups and classroom discussions, intervening to clear misconceptions or develop students’ understanding of content material, modeling scientific procedures and attitudes and, utilizing student experiences to create new content knowledge.

There are two models of Inquiry-Based Instruction; Guided Discovery and the 5-E Model. As a Student Teacher, these two models will help me to make complicated material easier for students to navigate and challenging material more engaging to my learners.

Retired From Alpha Tau Alpha

The Course Connections

Moving my train of thought from my Student Teaching Internship to my past academic experiences, I remember two instances in which Inquiry-Based Instruction has influenced my education. 

In my Education Psychology course in college, we talked a lot about metacognition. I remember my professor talking about that it is one thing to be a teacher who can teach material, but another thing entirely to be a teacher who can teacher a student how to learn. Through Inquiry-Based Instruction, students are able to exercise their "learning to learn" skills which are transferrable to situations outside of the classroom. Therefore, student's are able to grow in their metacognitive capabilities as well as their knowledge.

In my Biology course in college, there were a lot of challenging concepts and material that often frustrated the class. During the Inquiry process, there is a definite cycle of feelings that students rotate through in the process. Another way this process can be utilized is as a gauge for this cycle of feelings. While my Biology professor tried to tap into this by asking us questions about how we felt about the material, they did not explain to us why it was important for us to feel and work through they feelings as I hope to do when utilizing this model.

The Triangulated Connection

As mentioned about, there are two models to this teaching strategy, one of which is the 5-E Model. This model is typically used to strengthen student engagement in Inquiry-Based Instruction. As #psuaged22 has talked about before, utilizing engagement is essential to being an effective educator. To combine the importance of engagement and Inquiry-Based Instruction, I found the resource below on the 5-E Model. As always, please share your thoughts on the topics covered in this blog in the comment section. Until Week 12!

Northern, S. E. (2019, August 27). The 5 E’s of Inquiry-Based Learning - Knowledge Quest. Journal of the American Association of School Librarians. https://knowledgequest.aasl.org/the-5-es-of-inquiry-based-learning/.

"Taylor"ed with love,