Wondering + Online Inquiry = Learning: Online Information Sources Can Form the Basis of Effective Inquiry-Based Learning If Teachers Construct Assignments to Promote Collaboration, Communication, and More Inquiry

Learning what happens as elementary school children read and make meaning of the text and images they see fascinating, especially when the reading done in the context of children's interactions with each other and with online information. But such online inquiry tends to happen with students sitting closely together at a computer or a tablet, when all you can see the backs of their heads. So how do we know the time they're spending in inquiry productive? What influence does a project's design have on children's work? Is the chatter that we hear helpful for their thinking and learning? We have found carefully structured tasks that scaffold the ability to question, navigate, and negotiate the meaning of online text, and we have discovered that images can foster collaborations that are engaging, deeply comprehensive, and fruitful (Coiro et al., 2014). Inquiry-based learning engages students in collecting information, analyzing data, and crafting presentations that create solutions or make arguments. Students be come more positive and independent in their learning while gaining new knowledge and meaningful understandings of their world. Yet designing assignments that scaffold inquiry often necessary to support students' efforts. Structured inquiry experiences can help learners develop skills for coping with problems that have no clear solutions, dealing with challenges, and adapting procedures to the demands of different situations (Alberta Learning, 2004). Our research findings reinforce what others have suggested--that while students follow general patterns in thinking and collaboration, the inquiry is not linear or lock step. It highly individual, nonlinear, flexible, and more recursive than might be suggested in traditional models of the research process (Alberta Learning, 2004, p. 9). Thus, depending on the purposes of inquiry and the abilities of students, there are different ways to frame inquiries to support student success. Alberta's model of inquiry-based learning delineates four gradually less restrictive frameworks designed to encourage students' wondering with authentic inquiry tasks (see Figure 1). We found that the design of a structured online inquiry supports children's success in grades 3-5. We also uncovered certain patterns in how children read and talk about their work that enable them to be productive during various phases of the inquiry process. Designing online inquiry An authentic inquiry task connects students to relevant, real-world concepts and events. Thus, we based the inquiry task for our study of students in grades 3-5 on some of the curriculum topics their teachers covered. Our study took place in an International Baccalaureate school that used the environment and economics, among other themes, to shape its curricula. We presented the following scenario to the students: A new Green Toys Shop will open in our town. You have been asked to recommend several toys for the shop that would be eco-friendly and would appeal to children. Use the Internet to learn more about eco-friendly materials and to search for eco-friendly toys. Then, send an email to the Green Toys Shop owner that includes three recommended toys and the reasons that you chose them. We structured the inquiry by asking students to find particular answers to our teacher-directed scenario and to move through the given materials by working in pairs. We asked students to read an informational overview web page we created with embedded hyperlinks to increase their knowledge of environmentally friendly materials so that they could think about why a toy was eco-friendly. Some students chose to read deeply, visiting and discussing every link and generating additional questions to explore. Others read the words aloud to their partner, choosing not to follow any of the hyperlinks, and went on to search for toys without discussion or additional exploration. …

Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.