Describes a collaborative project in which six K-5 teachers and their students built a curriculum based on student inquiry, studying such topics as Christopher Columbus, personal and family history, slavery, human rights, space, and nature.

Increasingly the education world is recognizing that the development of learning communities is an effective means for improving schools without increasing the budget or adding new programs. This indispensible volume offers practical advice gathered from 22 schools (elementary, middle, and high schools) that have successfully modeled or are creating professional learning communities.

Bobbi Fisher offers suggestions, not prescriptions, and encourages teachers to use their own voices and styles, based on sound theory, to create their own thinking and learning classrooms.

Provides early childhood teachers a framework for collaborating with children to create a dynamic, emergent curriculum.

Everything you need to know to lead effective and engaging project-based learning! Are you eager to try out project-based learning, but don't know where to start? How do you ensure that classroom projects help students develop critical thinking skills and meet rigorous standards? Find the answers in this step-by-step guide, written by authors who are both experienced teachers and project-based learning experts. Thinking Through Projects shows you how to create a more interactive classroom environment where students engage, learn, and achieve. Teachers will find: A reader-friendly overview of project-based learning that includes current findings on brain development and connections with Common Core standards, Numerous how-to's and sample projects for every K-12 grade level, Strategies for integrating project learning into all main subject areas, across disciplines, and with current technology and social media and Ways to involve the community through student field research, special guests, and ideas for showcasing student work. Whether you are new to project-based learning or ready to strengthen your existing classroom projects, you'll find a full suite of strategies and tools in this essential book.

Connect inquiry to improved teaching and learning across your district! Now that federal and state initiatives require school districts to provide job-embedded professional development, the next step is making it happen. This book helps districts define, develop, and implement a systematic inquiry-based process with a laser-like focus on both adult and student learning. This book′s inquiry model challenges educators and students to: Define questions they are passionate about exploring Collect and analyze data to inform their questions Share what they have learned through the process with others Collaborate to build on their results and improve student achievement The authors′ award-winning school improvement program, featured in the text, offers a fresh look at how to improve the quality of teaching and learning across a district. Administrators, teachers, and students will find an invaluable road map for tackling real-world challenges and taking control of their own learning.

Want to make learning more meaningful in your classroom? Looking to better prepare your students for the world of tomorrow? Keen to help learners create authentic connections to the world around them? Dive into Inquiry beautifully marries the voice and choice of inquiry with the structure and support required to optimise learning for students and get the results educators desire. With Dive into Inquiry you'll gain an understanding of how to best support your learners as they shift from a traditional learning model into the inquiry classroom where student agency is fostered and celebrated each and every day. This book strikes a perfect balance of meaningful pedagogy, touching narrative, helpful processes, original student examples, and rich how-to lesson plans all to get you going on bringing inquiry into your classroom. After reading this book educators will feel equipped to design their own inquiry units in a scaffolded manner that promote a gradual shift of control of learning from the teacher to the learner. Exploring student passions, curiosities, and interests and having these shape essential questions, units of study, and performance tasks are all covered in this powerful book. Learn to keep track of the many inquiry topics in your classroom and have students take ownership over their learning like never before! Trevor MacKenzie provides readers with a strong understanding of the Types of Student Inquiry and proposes a framework that best prepares both educators and learners for sharing the unpacking of curriculum in the classroom as they work together towards co-constructing a strong Free Inquiry unit. Helpful illustrations for in-class use, examples of essential questions from a variety of disciplines, practical goals for making progress in adopting inquiry into your practice, and powerful student learning on display throughout, Dive into Inquiry will energize, inspire, and transform your classroom!

Harness the Power of Curiosity to Foster Students' Love for Learning From their youngest years, our children are innately curious. Cultivate an inquiry mindset both as a teacher and in your students! Adopt an inquiry approach that results in the most authentic and inspiring learning you've ever experienced!

There is currently a rapidly growing interest in inquiry learning and an emerging consensus among researchers that, particularly when supported by technology, it can be a significant vehicle for developing higher order thinking skills. Inquiry learning methods also offer learners meaningful and productive approaches to the development of their knowledge of the world, yet such methods can present significant challenges for teachers and students. Orchestrating Inquiry Learning addresses the key challenge of how to resource and support processes of inquiry learning within and beyond the classroom. It argues that technological support, when coupled with appropriate design of activities and management of the learning environment, can enable inquiry learning experiences that are engaging, authentic and personally relevant. This edited collection of carefully integrated chapters brings together, for the first time; work on inquiry learning and orchestration of learning. Drawing upon a broad range of theoretical perspectives, this book examines: Orchestration of inquiry learning and instruction Trajectories of inquiry learning Designing for inquiry learning Scripting personal inquiry Collaborative and collective inquiry learning Assessment of inquiry learning Inquiry learning in formal and semi-formal educational contexts Orchestrating Inquiry Learning is essential reading for all those concerned with understanding and promoting effective inquiry learning. The book is aimed at an international audience of researchers, post-graduate students, and advanced undergraduates in education, educational technology and psychology. It will also be of interest to educational practitioners and policy makers, including teachers, educational advisors, teacher-students and their trainers.