Designing and Implementing a Problem-Solving Environment for the Classroom

In the fall of 2016, I took a course on Inquiry and Technology. In that course I experimented with using a Google site as a tool to guide and manage student work for an inquiry-based learning experience. 

Since then I have used those skills to create several other inquiry-based projects. Students only have 30 minutes of learning time in the library every week, so the simpler and clearer a system I design, the less time I have to spend teaching students to use the tools--and the more time they then have to learn, share, and reflect on their learning. The screenshots below are of a short research project where students explore the question "How will climate change affect life in one region of the United States?" I used a combination of Google Classroom and a Google site to share this project with students. They used a standard note-taking form (I use the same one in all library classes and collaborative projects, I hope soon we have a standard form across the upper grades at Neshobe), and share the information they find through a single Google slide.

In the future, I think the Google site is one step too many---I would like to link all the resources from the Google Classroom page. I would also like to revise this project to provide choice in how students can show their learning. I would give the choice of creating a slide, a poster, a video or some other type of project. I am satisfied with the use of learning targets and surveys as both exit tickets and reflection on the project as a whole. I actually got a lot of useful feedback from students on the reflection survey, they felt overall that it was an enjoyable project (65% yes, 28% sort of), and suggested having more choice to make it better in the future.

I definitely will use environments like this to facilitate student learning in the future, and I will be sure to continue documenting my work and sharing ideas about how to best take advantage of Google Classroom and Sites.