Hay, L. (2010). Is it time for an ‘Inquiry Make-Over’? …enter Guided Inquiry [Workshop]. Cairns Diocese Curriculum Conference Library Strand, Catholic Education Services, Cairns, Qld, 13 March.

1. Is it time for an
‘Inquiry Make-Over’?
…enter Guided Inquiry
Session 2 workshop
Cairns Diocese
Curriculum Conference LYN HAY
Library Strand School of Information Studies
13 March 2010 Charles Sturt University

2. Educating for 21C

3. Educating for 21C
 How to we educate our students to meet the high levels of
literacy in the technological workplace?
 How do we prepare our students to navigate and make sense
of the global information environment?
 How do we enable our students to draw on the knowledge
and wisdom of the past while using the technology of the
present to advance new discoveries for the future?
 How do we prepare our students to think for themselves,
make good decisions, develop expertise, and learn through
life?
 Many teachers are turning to inquiry learning in subjects
across the curriculum to meet the challenge of educating
their students for lifelong learning

5. Inquiry learning
 Is an approach to learning whereby students find and use a variety
of sources of information and ideas to increase their understanding
of a problem, topic or issue
 It requires more than simply answering questions or getting a right
answer
 It espouses investigation, exploration, search, quest, research,
pursuit and study
 Inquiry does not stand alone; it engages, interests and challenges
students to connect their world within the curriculum
 It is often an individual pursuit
 Can be enhanced by being part of a community of learning
 Without some guidance, inquiry learning can be daunting
 Inquiry is not an add-on to the curriculum, it is a way of learning
content, skills and values within the curriculum through inquiry

6. Learning in the school library
Students actively engage with diverse and often
conflicting sources of information and ideas to
discover new ones, to build new understandings,
and to develop personal viewpoints and
perspectives.
KNOWLEDGE OUTCOME
--------------------------------------------------------------
It is underpinned by stimulating encounters with
information – encounters which capture their
interest and attention, and which motivate and
direct their ongoing inquiry.
INFORMATION FOUNDATION
(Todd 2008)

7. Inquiry moves beyond
fact finding

8. Inquiry moves beyond
fact finding
Raises standard of research assignments to
higher level by:
 Drawing on life experiences
 Learning from a wide range of sources
 Forming deep understanding
 Gaining sense of accomplishment
 Developing competence and expertise

9. AASL Standards for 21st century learners is available for download at
http://www.ala.org/aasl/standards

10. Information process models
See http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/schoollibraries/teachingideas/isp/docs/infoskills.pdf

11. The Big 6
 a 6 step problem-solving
model devised to support
students when dealing
with information
 addresses physical and
cognitive steps
 very popular
internationally with
professional support
material incl. Books,
newsletter, website,
conference and listserv
support – see
http://www.big6.com

12. And add
technology to
the mix…
Motivation as a
dimension of
learner-
centeredness
Engagement with
technology within a
constructivist
paradigm can
motivate learners
Learner-centered e-teaching & motivation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6HQl9F2UMc

13. Enter Carol Kuhlthau
Information Seeking
Process (ISP)
Affective Domain &
Uncertainty Principle
Guided Inquiry

14. The Uncertainty Principle
 a cognitive state
 causes anxiety and lack of confidence
 these affective symptoms can be
expected in the early stages of the ISP
“…uncertainty, confusion and frustration
are associated with vague, unclear
thoughts about a topic or question”

15. From Uncertainty to Understanding...
___________________________________________
uncertainty ------------- understanding
T vague clear
F anxious confident
A exploring documenting
access ------------------- information
____________________________________________
3 levels of experience: thinking (cognitive)
feeling (affective)
acting (physical)

16. Kuhlthau’s ISP
Tasks Initiation Selection Exploration Formulation Collection Presentation
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------→
Feelings uncertainly optimism confusion clarity sense of satisfaction or
(affective) frustration direction/ disappointment
doubt confidence
Thoughts vague-------------------------------------→focused
(cognitive) -----------------------------------------------→
increased interest
Actions seeking relevant information----------------------------→seeking pertinent information
(physical) exploring documenting

17. The Uncertainty Principle
“As knowledge states shift to more clearly
focused thoughts, a parallel shift occurs
in feelings of increased confidence.
Uncertainty due to a lack of understanding,
a gap in meaning, or a limited construct
initiates the process of information
seeking.”

18. Zone of intervention
Tasks Initiation Selection Exploration Formulation Collection Presentation
————————————————————————————————————————————→
Feelings uncertainly optimism confusion/ clarity sense of satisfaction or
(affective) frustration/ direction/ disappointment
doubt confidence
Thoughts vague———————————————→focused
(cognitive) ————————————————→
increased interest
Actions seeking relevant information——————————-→seeking pertinent information
(physical) exploring documenting
(Kuhlthau, 2004)

19. Implications of Kuhlthau's ISP
 Learning is an individual process, even
though the same information process
model is used
 Knowledge is constructed based on past
experience
 TL/teacher must develop expertise in
dealing with individual student's affective
concerns when completing information
tasks

20. What we now know....
 No matter how many times we use an
information process, a certain level of
uncertainty will always affect student's
completion of information tasks when
encountering new or 'unique' information
 TL/teacher must employ range of
strategies during learning process to assist
students to cope with the uncertainty
principle

21. Introducing Guided Inquiry....
“The information age calls for transforming
schools to meet new challenges”
 Guided Inquiry is a new learning and
instructional model
 Occurs in a collaborative learning
environment led by an instructional team
 Learning from a variety of sources
 Inquiry process for deep understanding
'unique' information

22. Guided Inquiry...
“... is carefully planned, closely
supervised targeted intervention(s )of
an instructional team of school
librarians and teachers to guide
students through curriculum based
inquiry units that build deep
knowledge and deep understanding
of a curriculum topic, and gradually
lead towards independent learning.”
CISSL, Guided Inquiry (2009)
http://cissl.scils.rutgers.edu/guided_inquiry.html

23. Guided inquiry
 Constuctivist approach to learning: staged,
guided
 Develops students’ competence with learning
from a variety of sources; goal is deep
knowledge
 Students are not ‘abandoned’ in the research
process
 Focus on deep learning, competence,
mastery, and self empowerment
 Build on strategies in Beyond Bird Units book

24. Planning a guided
inquiry unit

25. PIP: Design, process, roles
 students required to conduct primary and secondary
research
 a PIP guidelines booklet provided, incl. ‘how to’ on conducting the
research process, information process model, templates to scaffold
different tasks and stages of the info & research processes
 students required to keep a learning log of their progress, which
included 3 ‘records of reflection’ forms as per GI design (based on
Kuhlthau & Todd, 2006 & Fitzgerald, 2007)
 students could use a wiki, blog and del.icio.us to support their
project
 TL role principally as a Web 2.0 technology and information seeking
support, and assessor of these + bibliography and learning logs
 teacher role involved topic selection/approval, project design and
research process support, writing up of project content, and
assessor of these Hay PhD research (in press)

26. GI stages of reflection &
intervention
Templates for monitoring progress:
Progress Report 1
Progress Report 2
(Simple) Progress Report 3
Complex Progress Report 3

27. Implications and
recommendations

28. Intellectual quality
 Higher order thinking: Movement from description to explanation and
reflection
 Evident in increased specificity of topic focus
 Deep understanding: Evident in extent of recall and in the types of
causal and predictive relationships portrayed
 Substantive conversation: Valuing of dialogue between teacher,
teacher librarian and students; fluency in written statements
 Knowledge as problematic: In some cases, students identified dealing
with dealing with factual conflict or conflicting viewpoints and
formulating their own (choice of topic); also evident in constructing
arguments that show a basis for the claims they were making
 Meta-language: Use of language specific to the topic domain: not
just provision of terms, but clarity of understanding these terms
 Increasing complexity of the language used to describe their
knowledge, and the ordering of this knowledge into conceptually
coherent units
(Todd, 2008)

29. The emotional rollercoaster
 Very distinctive ebb and flow of emotions following the demands of
the research process
 Initial feelings: varied from a state confidence to slight
hesitation/uncertainty
 Increase in optimism and confidence as they identify a general topic
and begin to investigate sources for relevant information
 As in-depth investigations begin, students report a decline in
confidence, and an increase in feelings of frustration and
uncertainty
 Some frustration with sources and deadlines and achieving focus
 Increase in negative emotions—often reported here as stress,
anxiety, and pressure—just as the deadlines approach
 End of task / Submission: relief, confidence (because of level of
research done); acknowledge that it was “hard work” but
worthwhile

30. Enablers of learning
 Instructional intervention: providing the intellectual scaffolds
for connecting with, interacting with and utilizing information
3 kinds of scaffolds valued by students:
 Reception Scaffolds: assist learners in garnering information from
the diverse sources; direct the learner's attention to what is
important, and to help them organise and record what they
perceive. (Perceive structure in information)
 Transformation Scaffolds: assist learners in transforming the
information they've received into some other form. This involves
imposing structure on information.
 Production Scaffolds: assist learners in actually producing
something observable that conveys the complexity and richness of
what they have learned.
Guided inquiry: is not abandonment, need to model
the process and provide feedback

31. Is it time for an
‘Inquiry Make-Over’?
…enter Guided Inquiry
Session 2 workshop
Cairns Diocese
Curriculum Conference LYN HAY
Library Strand School of Information Studies
13 March 2010 Charles Sturt University

32. See http://www.sybasigns.com.au/
for great information process model
posters for your library and classrooms

33. References
Hay, L. (in press). Using Web 2.0 technologies to support student learning through the
guided inquiry process. Unpublished PhD thesis, Faculty of Education, Charles Sturt University.
Kuhlthau, C. C. (2004). Seeking meaning: A process approach to library and information services (2nd
ed.). Westport, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited.
Kuhlthau, C. C., Caspari, A. K., & Maniotes, L. K. (2007). Guided inquiry: Learning in the 21st century.
Westport, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited.
Loertscher, D. V., Koechlin, C., & Zwaan, S. (2005). Ban those bird units!: 15 models for teaching and
learning in information-rich and technology-rich environments. Salt Lake City, Utah: Hi Willow
Research and Publishing.
NSW Department of Education and Training. (2007). Information skills in the school: engaging learners
in constructing knowledge, NSW Department of Education and Training,
Sydney. Retrieved from
http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/schoollibraries/teachingideas/isp/docs/infosk
ills.pdf
Todd, R. J. (2008). Meaningful learning through inquiry: The lights come on. Keynote Address presented
at the SLAV 'Evidence to Action: Re-Imagining Learning' Conference, 19 June, Melbourne, Vic.
retrieved from
http://www.slav.schools.net.au/downloads/08pastpapers/29possibilities/todd_keynote.pps