1. How can a teacher find balance during this transition from more traditional knowledge-based content standards and more process-oriented skills?
As a teacher, transitioning from one form of assessment to another is not always an easy task. The most important aspect in a transition is educating the teacher. What is expected? What is changing as well as staying the same? What are the expectations for myself and the students? What is the importance of changing over from what we have to what we want to get to? Part of a district/administration's responsibility is to inform and educate their employees of the who, what, where, when, why and hows. This can be accomplished in several different ways including Professional Development days.
As far as an educated and informed teacher, I believe they need to keep an open mind. A lot of educators are set in their ways. They are comfortable and see no reason to change what they are doing. As educators, we need to realize that the world is always changing. It is our job to educate our students based on what they need to survive and be successful in the future. To accomplish this, we must keep an open mind with ideas, techniques and ways of educating.
2. What are key factors that help improve the success of inquiry-based lessons?
There are several key factors for having success in lessons that are inquiry-based. One factor includes being educated. In order to have success, our teachers must be educated. Without this, how will teachers know how to implement inquiry-based ways of teaching? Not only do teachers need to know how to do this, but also how to incorporate it into their lessons specifically and how to talk to their students with what they learn. Another factor is time. More than not, we are pressed for time in our classrooms. In order for students to explore, they need the time to do so. As teachers, we need to allot a certain amount of time to allow students to make self-discoveries. Having the necessary tools available is another factor. This could be as simple as a programming software on our school computers to design a map or design rectangular prisms. The more opportunities and tools we have as educators to challenge our students to use inquiry-based lessons, the more I believe it will happen.
3. What role can technology play in assisting those factors? Give specific examples.
Technology can assist in a variety of ways. Computer search engines, such as Google.com, can help teachers find specific examples of lessons to use or help assist them with ideas for their lessons. Video search engines, such as youtube, is another great source. Also, the internet is a great source in helping to find other teacher's comments with ideas they have used and how they or you could tweak the lesson to make it more effective. Another way is by having tools available for our students. An example of this would be such as having computers readily available with software that allows students to explore the topic and information in higher level thinking. As seen in my classroom, the use of technology keeps students more engaged. If we have software to help implement our inquiry-based lessons, it will help the teachers in several different ways, such as with keeping the students engaged to achieve higher level thinking.
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