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Inquiry Activity Critique

__Activities that Involve Inquiry Based Learning__** The assignment that Anika reviewed appeared to be an Inquiry Based activity, more so than mine, Kim-Marie's and Kristin's. In Anika's assignment, the students were asked to examine pictures to mimic the research that historians would possibly perform. After examining the evidence, they were to record their observations and answer questions. They could also obtain background information in reagards to the photograph they viewed. At the end of examining and detailing the evidence, the students participate in a culminating activity. It is that culminating activity that appears to be lacking in mine, Kim-Marie's, and Kristin's inquiry activities. The three of us did find activities that encompass inquiry based learning. Kim-Marie's activity allowed the students to examine the American Revolution and the roles that both African Americans and women played. Kristin's activity had the students pretend to be paleontologists and classify dinosaur bones. In my activity, students examined photographs of immigrants and their journey into Ellis Island and ethnic neighborhoods, making conclusions about their lives based on the images. However, I feel that relvance to today or some other creative activity makes an inquiry based activity go full-circle.
 * Rose DeInnocentiis

All four of us presented activities that involved inquiry based learning. As I mentioned above, it was the culminating activity that make Anika's stand out above the three others. I made this assumption after using my own rubric as a guide. The teacher, when assigning the activity as part of a project, can easily make the assignment collaborative and require the students to be creative and make it relevant to today.
 * __Activities that Do Not Involve Inquiry Based Learning__**

__**Best Rubric for Assessing Inquiry Based Learning**__ After looking at the four rubrics, I believe my rubric did a thorough job of assssing inquiry based learning. My definition and rubric encompassed analysis of sources, students formulating an opinion on the information, and creativity, much like the other three. Where all four definitions touch upon these topics, I believe the way I defined the use of collaboration and cooperative learning was the best. Students truly participate in higher learning when they are also given the opportunity to hear other's opinions on something. I came to the conclusion that coopertive learning must be a part of inquiry based learning with an activity I did with my own students. In a lesson on the Industrial Revolution, groups were given either a picture or narrative that they had to interpret. While I was expecting the usual responses, it was interesting to hear their discussions about the document given. Some students read or saw things that others did not, and even some things that I had missed. That interaction they had, forced some students to defend their observations and others to receive a better understanding of the documents they analyzed. That is why I made it part of my rubric and feel is the one component that made my rubric stand out.


 * Anika Khan**
 * (4)** I believe that all four of the webquests that we evaluated had inquiry based learning involved because the students were asked to evaluate, analyze and interpret the different tasks that they were required to perform. The students are learning about the subject matter through the webquest itself. However, the only thing that stood out to me was that the webquest that I evaluated and performed connected the students to an everyday life situation. The students were asked to think like an historian does. They were able to impersonate a historian and through this experience they gained insight on how to think and gather information about the pictures on display within the webquest. Furthermore, students were able to submit their reasons for there conclusions and raise any questions they had. This task permitted students to learn and think on their own, seek help from the tools available on the webquest, and come to a final conclusion. They were also able to compare their answers with other students, teachers and scholars. This activity permitted the students to go further in their inquiry learning experience than any of the other webquests.
 * (5)** I don’t feel that any of the activities we performed lacked inquiry based learning. I just feel that each webquest that was performed by Rose, Kim-Marie and Kristin could have gone into more depth to find a way to connect the student performing the activity to understand why it’s relevant for them in performing the said task. The webquest I performed stated that this webquest would give them insight on how historians do their work. Connecting students with what their learning is important in inquiry based learning.
 * (6)** I feel that the best rubric for assessing inquiry learning was Rose’s rubric because it breaks down in detail exactly what to look for in order to determine whether the student is performing inquiry based learning. The rubric specifies exactly what is required to measure the different criteria needed in order to establish if the student has accurately performed the tasks in order to achieve inquiry learning.

All four activities completed incorporated inquiry based learning since they all involved activities for further probing of questions by analyzing data with creativity, innovation and critical thinking. These activities did not include close ended questions or regurgitation of information but incoporate the use of open-ended questions. For example, Anika's inquiry based activities involved many probing questions with the role of students as historians. These students were not just learning historical facts but were able to make connection by thinking like a historian and asking relevant questions to perform tasks with the use of pictures and gathering clues. They were able to make a comparison with teachers and students work for more inquiry based knowledge without having the same or limited response to answers. Kristin's Dino Inquiry activity also incorporated inquiry based learning where students were able to observe and analyze the functional characteristics of dinosaur's bones; however, there could have been more inquiry learning activities such as students playing the role of paleontologist and giving a demonstration on the bones observed and their functions instead of student just labeling bones with numbers and making a comparison. Rose's activity //Port of Entry// incorporated good inquiry based learning where students would become historical detective by examining a series of photographs to reflect the different aspects of ethnicties and immigration but could have incorporated more open-ended questions to probe new questions for students on the lives of immigrants based on observation of pictures and students making connections to different immigrants and ethnicties even through their own generations. I think that I could have incorporated more inquiry based learning in my activity with the use of more probing questions and having students perform the role as historians in order to have a better visualization of the revolutionary war and the significance of the artifacts used in the lesson. This would allow students to incorporate more analytical skills and higher level thinking since student would be understanding the era based on a historical perspective while researching and analyzing data.
 * Kim-Marie Cespedes**

I liked my newly improved inquiry based rubric since I could relate to the criterias listed to all four inquiry based activities done by the group such as the use of open-ended questions to probe further engagement into activities. Most of the activities involved creativity, flexibilty and innovation in developing tasks plus students were learning new materials through exploration instead of just data collection and incorporating higher level critical and analytical skills. However, I have to agree that Rose's Inquiry based rubric was very good since she clearly specified in her rubric students becoming problem-solvers and presenting relevant and entertaining information on topic using critical thinking analysis and freely creating their own work with various roles within the activity which are important criterias in inquiry based learning.

Kristin Sersen 4) I agree with my group that all four of our activities were inquiry based activities. All activities encouraged the use of critical thinking and exploration to gather information. Both Rose and Anika’s activities had students take on a role as a detective which is an important part of inquiry learning that promotes higher level thinking. Asking students to take on a detective role is encouraging them to seek out information, analyze and classify the information, and form a conclusion based on their observations. I believe Kim Marie’s activity incorporated students viewing a primary artifact that was used during the American Revolution. Allowing students to view real-life documents and artifacts is extremely beneficial to their learning because it makes the content more realistic and true to life. I agree with my group that Anika’s activity was very nicely put together. Open ended questions such as “What are these people doing?” and “What might this mean?” do not have one definitive answer and allow students to think critically about the task at hand. Rose’s activity was similar to mine in the fact that it incorporated real pictures. Her activity allowed students to view pictures of immigrant life in ethnic neighborhoods. Primary sources are much more impactful to have in any lesson vs. a teacher lecturing what life is like for those people in those neighborhoods. 5) All of our activities were inquiry based. They all had multiple steps that encouraged critical thinking and investigating. I do agree with Anika that her activity seemed to have set objectives from the start so that all of the activities and steps in the task were meant to build on one another and move the students toward that learning objective. I felt that my dinosaur activity was inquiry based but at the end I was asking myself, “So what?” If I was a young student I would be asking myself, “What do I do with this information and why do I need to know this?” The importance of paleontology and studying artifacts should have been incorporated more into this activity so students absorb the newly gained information and register it in their minds. I feel the same way about Rose and Kim Marie’s activities. They were definitely inquiry based, but there was something lacking in the end that tied it all together so students will be able to understand why this is important and why they need to know this information. 6) Rose’s rubric for inquiry learning is very good. I like how one of her criteria categories is that the students should formulate an educated opinion/hypothesis about the topic. I feel that students will become more invested in the investigating process if they are trying to prove their hypothesis. It makes the experience richer and more meaningful along the way as they discover information that either proves their thinking or disproves what they originally thought. If they have no insight or interest in the topic, then they are not going to remember and care about the information they gather. All rubrics were very well written and thought out. I just feel that Rose’s in very concise and touches on all major components of inquiry learning.