Author Archives: educatoral

In response to my questions on the Inquiry Dry Spell post I wrote Edna (@whatedsaid) posed some questions to get me thinking about inquiry in my Science classes. She wrote the following on her post, Response to the dry spell… … Continue reading →

I use Carolina’s STC/MS Energy, Machines, and Motion kit (EMM) with my 6th graders. The lessons in this kit are well structured to take advantage of how people learn by making sure every lesson starts by eliciting prior knowledge of … Continue reading →

I wrote my first post for Inquire Within on Nov 29, 2010 and my last post was on Dec 5, 2011. I’ve gone two whole years without writing a post! Last school year, after many months of not writing a … Continue reading →

Through my work with the Olympic Math and Science Partnership (OMSP) I have been learning a lot about the formative process. One aspect of formative assessment or assessment for learning that is of extra interest to me has been questioning. … Continue reading →

A few years back I was fortunate enough to be able to participate in an online media production professional development toolkit for middle school educators. Vulcan Productions teamed up with Education Development Center to create Success at the Core. Registering … Continue reading →

Last week our 8th grade Bacteria Labs went all wrong. Student teams went all around the school swabbing different places to see where they would find the most bacteria. What happened was something I didn’t expect, not one single petri … Continue reading →

Back in November I was reflecting on whether or not inquiry can be, or should be, structured. Overall my conclusion was that yes, it can and should, at times, be structured by the teacher. Even with my 8th graders I … Continue reading →

A colleague of mine, Kit Pennell, gave me a great idea. I am teaching two 8th grade life science classes and I’ve been looking for opportunities to get my students to generate questions they are interested in learning about. Luckily … Continue reading →