Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Lisa Brise
Introduction
Traditionally, school subjects have been divided into separate classes, taught by a
specific teacher, in a specific room. The emphasis has been on the teacher presenting the
material and the students memorizing the information so they can regurgitate it on a test. These
practices are not reflective of how the world works and does not prepare our students for
success in our ever changing world. Fortunately for today’s students and the future of our
society, educators are beginning to shift their methods of teaching and are focusing on different
outcomes. The education system is shifting to a new style of teaching and learning called 21st
century learning. This new style of learning recognizes that we need to shift our values in
education to match them to our current world. An article called Learning 21st-Century Skills
ecosystem, and political networks require that students learn to communicate, collaborate, and
problem solve with people worldwide” (Saavedra & Opfer, 2012, p.8).
British Columbia has developed a new curriculum that was launched in the 2016/2017
school year for kindergarten to grade 9. The grade 10-12 curriculum documents are still in the
process of being developed and are scheduled to be finalized in the summer of 2018. This new
curriculum focuses on collaboration, critical thinking and communication, with the hopes of
better preparing our youth for the workforce, whether they enter it directly after high school or
pursue higher education prior to obtaining employment. There is also a large emphasis on
personalized learning as it is recognized that each student learns differently, at different paces
and has different interests. Hands on learning and connecting content to the real world is also
emphasized. The new curriculum gives teachers more freedom to go the directions they desire
based on their unique classes. As a student teacher, this is an exciting time to enter the
education system as teachers are given more autonomy and will now have the ability to cater to
Now one might ask why engagement is important? Engagement has only become a
consideration in the education world in the past couple decades (Lent, 2012). I think this is
because past teaching methods did not often call for engagement. Teachers would lecture,
students were supposed to listen. It was not the fault of the teacher if the students didn’t pay
attention. This is no longer the case as new focuses emerge. Across Canada and
internationally, “student engagement has become one of the key concerns and key strategies
for educational and social reform particularly in middle and high schools” (Parsons et al., 2011,
p.7). The main goals of this shift towards engagement is to decrease dropout rates, reduce
classroom management issues and to encourage students to become skilled lifelong learners
(Parsons et al., 2011). When looking at drop out rates, it was found that low engagement was a
precursor to dropping out of school (Guthrie, 2008). Guthrie explains how this works with
reading:
read more, and the more engaged those students become the higher they achieve.
Likewise, lower achievers read less, and the less engaged decline in achievement. The
Students that enter this downward spiral are more likely to drop out. Furthermore, reading is
part of most subjects, meaning that low engagement in reading can affect their engagement and
The importance of engagement was not yet widely recognized when I worked my way
through the school system. In addition, I have not yet spent very much time in a classroom with
a teacher’s perspective, meaning that 21st century learning practices and principles are still
quite new to me. It is intuitive to try to teach others how you were taught and it will therefore
take me some time to foster and internalize strategies that align with the values of the new BC
curriculum in my classroom practice. The idea of engagement in the classroom, to me, is very
In my fall practicum of 2017, I was placed in Dover Bay Secondary School with three
classes of Grade 8s. I was with them for their French and Healthy Living classes. The grade 8s
at this school move through their classes in pods. This means that they have the same group of
students in all of their classes. French and Healthy Living alternate weeks, meaning that they do
one full week of one and then one full week of the other. In my final two weeks of this practicum,
I had the opportunity to be involved in an interesting project, which fueled my research question
“How did the experience of teaching and observing an interdisciplinary inquiry project impact my
research was informed by the grade 8 students through observations, discussions with the
students, as well as data from two surveys. One was a short survey I provided to two of my
classes and the second was created by the grade 8 teachers and was given to all of the grade
perspective.
Literature/Theoretical Framework
teaching methods to ones that are more student-centered. Included in the various options for
studies does not always involve inquiry, it could be argued that a true inquiry approach is always
multiple lessons. Traditionally, subjects taught in school have been divided up with few
connections drawn between subjects. This is not reflective of our highly complex and
interconnected world. In her book, Lent (2012) stated, “knowledge doesn’t come in neat little
packages labeled “science,” “social studies,” “English,” and “math,” despite textbooks that seem
to capture information in just that way” (p.176). For the time being, our education system divides
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classes up into these specific topics, but that does not mean that teachers cannot seek ways to
collaborate with their peers and provide interdisciplinary learning experiences. Interdisciplinary
studies has the potential make learning easier, more realistic and more useful to the student
Inquiry learning involves the students doing their own research to answer a question or solve a
problem. Inquiry learning exists on a continuum as it can range from very structured to highly
open ended and can be broken down into four levels: confirmation, structured, guided and open
(Banchi & Bell, 2008). In confirmation, students partake in an activity to confirm the results that
are already known to them. Structured inquiry is when the teacher provide the question and the
procedure to obtain the results but the results are unknown to the students. Guided is when the
teacher provides only the question and the students use their own methods to reach
conclusions. Finally, open inquiry is when all aspects of the inquiry are decided by the student
including the question and procedure. The different levels of inquiry allow students to slowly
build on their scientific reasoning skills and work their way up to open inquiry. It is suggested
that when students have been exposed to the first three levels of inquiry, they can be successful
with open inquiry as early as grade four (Banchi & Bell, 2008).
Although the four levels of inquiry provide a good framework to help students build up to
open inquiry, not all four levels will have the same outcomes, in terms of learning. Bunterm et al.
(2014) conducted a study that compared the results of structured and guided inquiry in grade 7
and grade 10 science classes in three schools in Northern Thailand. Although both types of
inquiry increased science content knowledge and science process skills, it was found that the
guided inquiry resulted in greater improvement in both these areas. In one of the three schools,
it was also found that the guided inquiry led to better scientific attitudes and less self perceived
stress. Although this article looked at only two specific inquiry activities, in science classrooms,
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the takeaway is that not all types of inquiry result in equal learning outcomes. Furthermore,
student engagement would also differ based on the type of inquiry and student interest in the
activity. Bunterm et al. (2014) suggested that the greater improvement in content knowledge
and process skills was likely due to the fact that the students had to engage more deeply with
the material. I believe that in most cases, student engagement would increase as you increase
the amount of the inquiry process that is decided by the student or in other words, as you
In order to examine student engagement, it is important to define what one is looking for.
Although engagement is being focused on in education and research, there are many different
definitions and “the meaning of the concept changes from research to research, from school to
school, and even from classroom to classroom” (Parsons et al, 2011, p.14). In their literature
review, Parsons et al. (2011) identified four common goals of engagement. These four goals
psychological “highs” while learning and to acquire knowledge building skills. In my research, I
words “flow” experiences. The term flow was developed by Csikszentmihalyi and refers to “the
full involvement with what one is doing, which is experienced as enjoyable and uplifting”
To me, engagement in a classroom, in the context of flow, has a certain energetic feel.
The students are excited and become interested in what they are learning. They also tend to
stay focused and on task for longer periods of time. To foster engagement in reading and
research, students need to have a sense that the text they are reading may have the
information that they “need to know” to accomplish a task (Lent, 2012). Having the desire to find
the information is key and one can help encourage this by providing an interesting task.
Engagement of a whole classroom can be difficult to achieve as learners are different and will
be intrigued by different tasks and topics. However, it is still important to strive to achieve this
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and I believe that engagement can be contagious. When one student is talking excitedly about
what they are learning, I think this can help foster excitement in surrounding students. However,
I think the opposite is also true. If one student makes negative comments about the task or
topic, other students are more likely to also buy into this frame of mind.
minimal experience in a classroom, I have already seen the many instances where some
students simply do not want to learn and do not want to be there. I think that engaging these
students will be a challenge that teachers will face throughout their careers; however, there are
strategies we can use to help create an engaged classroom. In their literature review, Parsons
et al. (2011) identified six common elements that can lead to increased engagement. They
suggest that learning should involve interaction, exploration, relevancy, multimedia and
engagement. An interdisciplinary inquiry project has the potential to include several or even all
of these elements.
that occurred in all of the grade 8 classes at the school in which I was placed for my fall
practicum. I was a part of this project for two weeks, during which I worked with three grade 8
classes in French for the first week and in Healthy Living for the second week. The inquiry
project was centered around the provided question of “how does where one lives affect how one
lives?” The students picked a First Peoples group in Canada and explored this question in their
STEM, Humanities, French and Healthy Living classes. The first part of the project involved
teaching content to provide background information for the students and to introduce them to
the concepts they would be researching. In the second part, the students each picked a First
Peoples group of Canada that they were going to research. They researched the culture,
lifestyle, language, society and environment of their group and also compared the First Peoples’
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lifestyle to their own lifestyle. The students each created a mind map to present their ideas and
My research is based on my experience with this project and is centered around the
question “How did the experience of teaching and observing an interdisciplinary inquiry project
level?” My data collection occurred before, during and after the project through observations,
conversations, surveys and an interview with my sponsor teacher. I conducted this study as I
was interested to see how the students responded to an interdisciplinary inquiry project. I was
interested to see if it would increase their engagement as I would like to try to facilitate engaging
This study was somewhat limited as I could not conduct formal research and I was also
not involved in the project from start to finish. In the final stages of the project, the students had
most of their classes to conduct research and create the mind maps and it would have been
interesting to see how they responded to this freedom to work on their project, at their own
pace, for the majority of each school day. Also, I did not decide to conduct this research until
after my involvement with the project and therefore I was not making observations as a
researcher during the project. I also have little experience in a classroom and my observations
and inferences are probably different than if I had spent multiple years in a classroom. That
being said, I think there are benefits to coming into the situation with fresh eyes and new ideas
To start this project, the student teachers that were working with the grade 8 classes
taught lessons on note taking and mind mapping. This occurred a week prior to the start of the
project and was intended to prepare them for the project and give them an idea of what the end
result would be. The project started at the same time we, the student teachers, began our two
weeks at the school in late November. Prior to this, we had been in these classes one morning
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a week since the start of classes in September and we had also spent a full week in the classes
in October. During our two weeks, we taught lessons designed to give them the background
I spent my first week in French classes. To start, we did a lesson that exposed students
to different cultural customs and phrases in different languages. We then did a lesson on some
of the French verbs that could be helpful for the project and then they began researching First
Peoples languages. For the French part of the project, they were to translate a few pleasantries
and phrases into French, the First People language of their chosen First Peoples and a third
language of their choice. The rest of this week was taken up by a youth empowerment summit
In my second week in Healthy Living, we taught the students a variety of sports and
skills that First Peoples groups of Canada engage in. Some of these activities were lacrosse,
longball, wrestling and some of the activities that are in the Dene games. The students also
spent two classes working on their food and activity logs. For the Healthy Living part of the
project, the students needed to identify what sports and physical activities their group engaged
in and had to compare and contrast their own eating and exercise habits to those of their First
Peoples.
During the time of the project, I did not know that I would be conducting this research,
therefore my observations were not made through the lens of a researcher. I think this is
also somewhat beneficial as I did not adjust my teachings nor focus on certain aspects to
achieve my desired results. Furthermore, I do not think the observations made during this time
were vital to my research. I think the student directed portion of the project would have been a
better indication of engagement. Unfortunately, I did not witness this part of the project;
however, I did get to see the final product of the project, the mind maps, and had the opportunity
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to speak to students about the project and conduct a survey. These follow up actions were my
After the project, I got to attend an event where the students displayed their mind maps
and answered questions from those that attended the event. This event inspired my research
and was very insightful as I got to see the mind maps and talk to many different students. I also
returned to the school one day approximately a month and a half after the completion of the
project to conduct a survey (see Appendix A) with two of the classes I worked with and to
interview my sponsor teacher. My sponsor teacher also showed me the result of a survey they
conducted with the grade 8s about the project. Two hundred and ten grade 8s responded to the
teachers’ survey. In my research, I was attempting to determine if this project increased student
engagement and sought the perspectives of the students and my sponsor teacher, to
During my short time in French, the best example of engagement occurred on the first
day. The students were circulating to different stations around the room where they looked at
infographics from different countries. They had a worksheet to fill in that included “two things
that you find interesting about this country.” The students really seemed to enjoy this activity
and some students were excitedly telling us things that were customary in different countries. I
think this was a good example of engagement as the students were excited and very much on
task. In healthy living, I would not say that the students were more engaged than normal but
given that these lessons were to provide background knowledge for their inquiry project, they
were not delivered in a different way than previous physical education lessons.
What I believe is more informative than my two weeks at the school, is the time after I
left, when the students had open blocks to conduct their research and create their mind maps.
Given that I was not present to make observations, I am using conversations, survey results and
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is necessary and in my mind, the first step. Therefore many of the questions I posed to my
sponsor teacher and the students, focused on the students’ enjoyment of the project.
All of the grade 8 students in the school came to Vancouver Island University, one
afternoon, to display their mind maps and answer questions from attendees. I circulated the
room, looking at the many mind maps and asking students questions. Some of the mind maps
were absolutely incredible and students clearly put in a ton of time into them. I was both
surprised and impressed by the products of this project. In talking to the students, mostly ones
that I had taught, I was surprised that some of students that were typically uninterested in
school said that they really enjoyed this project. This is what really intrigued me. In talking with
the students, they brought up some aspects of the project that they either liked or didn’t like and
I used to make my survey to see if other students agreed with these statements.
The results of the survey (See Appendix B) were quite varied with the exception of the
first statement “I liked that we were working on it in every class.” 26 of the 34 students that
responded to the survey either agreed or strongly agreed with this statement. This result could
be interpreted to mean that the students liked the interdisciplinary aspect of this project. It could
also mean that they liked that they only had one thing to work on or that they really enjoyed the
project and therefore liked that they got to spend so much time on it. I found the mixed
responses to “I enjoyed the inquiry question” quite interesting. I think enjoying the question of an
inquiry project would be huge contributing factor to enjoying the overall project. If one did not
enjoy the question, they are probably not interested in exploring it. One student stated “I liked
that it was fun but I didn’t like the inquiry question.” Another student said, “I liked the topic but
didn’t like making the mind map.” Given that making the mind map was such a big part of the
project, not liking this aspect would have probably greatly affected that student’s enjoyment of
the project. There were also a few comments that suggested the students’ liked the inquiry
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aspect of the project including “I liked finding facts and organizing them on our paper” and “I
Another interesting result of the survey was that in the response to the open-ended
question, “what did you like or not like about the project?,” many students commented on the
amount of class time they had to work on it. There were many contrasting comments like “I liked
that we had lots of class time to work on it” and “I did not like that the time to work on it was too
short”. This goes to show that students all work at different paces and need different amounts of
time to complete the same work. This also could be reflective of how much effort they put into
the project. Perhaps the ones that said they didn’t have enough time, put a lot more effort into
their mind map. Although there were certain things that had to be on the mind map, they was
clearly a wide range in the amount of time students spent on the artistic aspect of the mind
maps.
My sponsor teacher also allowed me to view the results of a survey the teachers gave to
the grade 8s. They were able to reach a lot more students than I did with mine as 219 students
responded. 47% of the students that responded said they enjoyed the project. 55% of the
students said that the teachers should do this project again, with 21% being neutral and only
24% disagreeing with this statement. 58% said they were excited for their next inquiry project
which will be on a topic of their choice. Given that the number of students that are excited for
the next project was greater than the number of students that enjoyed this project, I can infer
that some students may not have enjoyed this project due to the prescribed inquiry question. I
find it interesting that the number of students that thought the teachers should continue this
project was greater than the number that enjoyed this project. I find it hard to believe that they
would want the project to continue if they did not enjoy it. I think that this goes to show that
survey results are not necessarily the best indicator of students true thoughts as there are a
variety of factors that could influence their responses and they may not spend much time
From my sponsor teachers perspective, she thought the students enjoyed the project for
the most part. However, she found that many of them did not use their class time effectively and
had to rush at the end. Some students also expressed this in my discussions with them and
found that to be a valuable learning experience about time management. One student
commented on the survey “I liked the part where all of a sudden everybody was finishing up and
I was just in the middle. That feeling of rush. I liked that.” To me, this comment shows that just
because the student may not have used his or her time effectively at the start, it does not
necessarily mean they were not engaged. My sponsor teacher thought that the project would
have been better to do later in the year as they did the year before with this project. It is difficult
to do it early on in French, as they haven’t yet learnt a lot of French. Also, she thought that there
was maybe too many people involved with all of the student teachers being there for the first
two weeks and then passing it back to the teachers to do the second half. She said that many
students did not like the inquiry topic. She thinks that the interdisciplinary inquiry project that
they will be doing in the spring will be better as the student will be able to pick their topics. She
also expressed that she thinks interdisciplinary and inquiry projects are good teaching methods
project can engage some students at the lower secondary level. There was evidence to suggest
that some students really enjoyed this project. It is important to realize that not every inquiry
depends on the project, the topic, the structure of the project and most importantly the students.
All students are different and respond differently to various teaching methods.
The literature also supports my theory that interdisciplinary inquiry projects can lead to
increased engagement and Parsons et al. stated that “classroom practices reported to engage
learners are predominantly inquiry based, problem-based, and exploratory” (2011, p.38). As
previously stated, the common elements to increase student engagement are interaction,
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exploration, relevancy, multimedia and technology, engaging and challenging instruction, and
authentic assessment (Parsons et al., 2011). There are many different ways to conduct an
interdisciplinary inquiry project and you can easily incorporate many or even all of these
elements.
project with a class of my own and students that I know well. I would like to be a part of a project
like this from start to finish to get a better sense of students reactions. It would be interesting to
see how the same grade 8 students respond to the more open-ended inquiry project that they
will be doing this spring. I imagine that the freedom of choice will increase their enjoyment of the
project. I think for inquiry projects, choice in the topic is important because then the student will
more likely be interested and curious about the topic. I also think it would be interesting to let the
students decide how they will present their findings or at least give them a few options. Mind
maps worked really well for some students, primarily ones that enjoy the freedom to be creative,
but not very well for others. It is always important to recognize your students as unique human
beings with different interests, needs and talents. In order to foster engagement in the
classroom, I think it is really important to give students a lot of choice and freedom so that they
can learn and present their learning in ways that work for them. I think there should also be
times where they work on areas that are not their strengths but it is important to recognize that
This experience was quite valuable as it was my first experience with an interdisciplinary
inquiry project in a high school. I gained valuable insight on how I could effectively conduct a
project like this one. I have also gained knowledge on what is engagement, what does it look
like in the classroom and some ideas to help foster it in my own classroom. This shift towards
student centered learning is exciting for me as an educator and it is my hope that it will be
Conclusion
“The traditional purpose of education was to best prepare students to serve society’s
needs – to be productive and effective in the world of work. And, curriculum adopted these
purposes. If curriculum followed today, it would work to help create highly adaptive, engaged
learners and problem solvers” (Parsons et al., 2011, p.29). In order to prepare our students for
life after high school, we need to change our curriculum and teaching methods to reflect the
longer relevant and we therefore need to shift towards student centered approaches to try to
help them develop the skills necessary to thrive. As Parsons et al. (2011) noted “education must
enable individuals to discover what they need to know rather than just having static knowledge.
Society will need college graduates with mental agility and adaptability” (Clayton-Pedersen &
O’Neill, 2005, p. 9.13). We must move away from the idea that teachers are the knowledge
keepers and move towards student centered learning where the students problem solve and
find the relevant information themselves. In order to succeed with student centered approaches,
student engagement is necessary. We must now seek ways to empower students to want to
learn and better themselves and the world. Given that this is a fairly new concept in education
and that most current educators were not personally taught in this way, it will take time and
References
Banchi, H., & Bell, R. (2008). The many levels of inquiry: Inquiry comes in various forms.
Bunterm, T., Lee, K., Ng Lan Kong, J., Srikoon, S., Vangpoomyai, P., Rattanavongsa, J., &
Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Asakawa, K. (2016). Universal and cultural dimensions of optimal
Guthrie, J. T. (2008). Engaging adolescents in reading. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Lent, R. C., & Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. (2012). Overcoming
textbook fatigue: 21st century tools to revitalize teaching and learning. Alexandria, Va:
ASCD
Lynott, F. J., III, Kracl, C. L., Knoell, C. M., & Harshbarger, D. (2013). Using the shared
Physical
Parsons, J., Taylor, L., University of Alberta, & Canadian Electronic Library (Firm). (2011).
Student engagement: What do we know and what should we do?. Edmonton, Alta:
University of Alberta.
Saavedra, A. R., & Opfer, V. D. (2012). Learning 21st-century skills requires 21st-century
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Appendix A
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Appendix B
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