Reflection on Inquiry Celebration

The Inquiry Celebration was definitely more helpful this year as I really paid attention as to what the Interns' inquiries consisted of and how they were presented. It has also given me some ideas on how to guide my Inquiry for next year, whatever it may be.


The first seminar session presentations all focused on a similar idea of ways to help students gain further understanding of the material. The first presentation focused on Guided Inquiry. This had some good information on how to phrase questions and prompt so they cause students to develop critical thinking skills. The second and third presentations focused on using project-based goals/inquiry to help further student understanding. All three of these presentations were good and they definitely helped me understand some rationals for the students. Students tend to want teachers to just tell them the answers and are resistant to having think for themselves at times. However, if the teacher perseveres, students will eventually warm up to the idea.


The second seminar session I attended had some more information that I could use in my future classroom. My favorite one was probably the last session which involved using Foldables as an alternative to traditional note-taking. It was something that I don't think I would have initially though of doing. Though the presenter used the Foldables in her Geometry class and said that the Algebra 2 classes were not receptive to it, I think it could be used in an Algebra 1 class for a unit involving factoring. I think the second presentation about Word Problems and Daily Buzzes had a good idea behind it but it wasn't given enough time to show some more meaningful results. The third presentation had some good information about the value of intrinsic motivation and friendly competition.