What is it that makes an IBL unit powerful? What are the elements that allow students to grow and develop their own abilities as independent learners? This workshop is a hands-on planning workshop where teachers will be coached to develop the spine of an outstanding inquiry based learning unit.

1. Planning
Outstanding
Inquiry Based
Learning
PrepareD
August 2013
Dr Adrian Bertolini

2. Introduction

3. Intentions of Today
• To continue improving your practice of
planning and developing engaging, authentic
learning tasks and units that prepares students for
an ever changing world
• To have you plan so as to develop independent
learners
• To have begun to create the spine of the plan for
a unit

4. What YOUR job is today
Be open, honest and participate
As the range of
viewpoints and ideas
are presented
Try them on,
Think about them,
Discuss them &
Learn what you Learn!

5. Today’s workshop
Quick Review of the Planning Process
Can-Do List
Key Understandings and Essential Questions
Culminating Event and Checklist
Formative Rubric

6. Planning for Powerful Learning
#1: Built upon rituals and habitual practices
#2: Requires them to drive to the destination we
set
#3: Design learning that provides choice,
responsibility and purpose and develops
intrinsic motivation

7. Planning for Performance
Planning for Performance requires you to address 4
elements
WHAT – the goal, the destination
understandings, skills and knowledge
HOW – the process, activities, and the learning
strategies
WHY – the purpose, the context for learning
OBSTACLES – the barriers, student misconceptions,
student mindset

8. Flow of Planning
Identify
Desired
Results
Determine
Acceptable
Evidence
Plan Learning
Experiences
and Instruction

9. Setting the Destination
Identify
Desired
Results
By the end of the Unit what do you want the
students
• Know (Facts)
• Be Able to do (Skills)
• Understand
(Deep Learning)

10. How do we know they got there?
What would constitute evidence that shows
that the students:
• Know (Facts)
• Be Able to do (Skills)
• Understand
(Deep Learning)
Determine
Acceptable
Evidence

11. How will we get them there?
What activities, structures and learning
approaches could we design to have the
students successfully
• Know (Facts)
• Be Able to do (Skills)
• Understand
(Deep Learning)
Plan Learning
Experiences
and Instruction

12. How will we get them there?
Also need to address:
Student Misconceptions
Practicing Skills
Feedback
Engaging them
Mindset
Plan Learning
Experiences
and Instruction

13. Planning Authentic Inquiry Units
“Inquiry is a systematic investigation or study into
a worthy question, issue, problem or idea.”
www.galileo.org/inquiry-what.html
Authentic Learning is …
“Construction of knowledge, through disciplined
inquiry, to produce discourse, products and
performances and that have meaning
beyond success in school.”
Wehlage, Newman & Secada
Care of www.inquiringmind.co.nz

14. Spectrum of Inquiry-Based Learning
© University of Illinois – Bertram C. Bruce
Increasing Mastery
of Learning
Greater sense of self
responsibility
Greater capacity to
work together
Immersion to form
mental models and
understanding
I’m the
Driver
They
Drive

15. A Structure for Learning Tasks
Tuning In
Design
End Goals
Plan to
Achieve Goals
Action Reflection
1 2 3 4 5 6 87 109
Tuning In /Research Action
Design & Plan
to Achieve
Goals
Culminating
Demonstration
Celebrate
/ Evaluate
Feedback
Real, Practical and
involve Community

16. Today’s workshop
Quick Review of the Planning Process
Can-Do List
Key Understandings and Essential Questions
Culminating Event and Checklist
Formative Rubric

17. Defining the Destination
1 2 3 4 5 6 87 109
Tuning In /Research Action
Design & Plan
to Achieve
Goals
What are the
skills and
understandings
they must
demonstrate by
the end of this
unit?
Celebrate
/ Evaluate
Identify
Desired
Results

18. Defining the Destination
Go through the AusVELS for the area you are wanting
to develop a unit for and
Extract the content, understandings and skills
from the AUSVELS pertinent to the unit and put it
all in one document
Identify what the students
should know and be able to
do by the end of the unit
Identify
Desired
Results

19. Example Grade 2 Design and Tech
Identify
Desired
Results

20. Defining the Destination
Using this information, create a can do list of what you want the
students to know and the skills you want them to display. It is
written in the language of the student year level.
Identify
Desired
Results

21. Can-Do List Grade 2 Design & Tech
I can:
• Follow a simple design brief
• Sketch a design of my product
• Describe to my teacher my idea for a product
• List the materials I will need for my product
• List the main steps I will take to make my product
• Use tools safely
• Join materials in different ways
• Test and modify my product
• Explain why or why not my product sold
Identify
Desired
Results

22. Today’s workshop
Quick Review of the Planning Process
Can-Do List
Key Understandings and Essential Questions
Culminating Event and Checklist
Formative Rubric

23. Defining the Destination
Using your Can-Do List and the AusVELS
What are the actual key understandings you want
the students to achieve by the end of the unit?
This involves creating an overall goal
understanding that you want the students to achieve
from completing this unit. This will frame it into a
bigger picture of WHY this topic is important.
The next step is to unpack this understanding into
a sequence of supporting understandings that logically
lead to the key understanding.
Identify
Desired
Results

24. Example Grade 4 History
AUSVELS Focus
The year 4 curriculum introduces world history and the movement of
peoples. Beginning with the history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
peoples, students examine European exploration and colonisation in
Australia and throughout the world up to the early 1800s. Students examine
the impact of exploration on other societies, how these societies interacted
with newcomers, and how these experiences contributed to their cultural
diversity.
By the end of Level 4, students explain how and why life changed in the past
and identify aspects of the past that remained the same. They describe the
experiences of an individual and group over time. They recognise the
significance of events in bringing about change.
Identify
Desired
Results

25. Example Grade 4 History
1. The movement of people around the world occurs for a
range of reasons
2. The movement impacts on the existing culture, identity and
society
3. The settling of Europeans in Australia had an enormous
impact on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders
4. Understanding Australia’s social origins and cultural history
allows us to understand and have empathy for the
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Identify
Desired
Results

26. Defining the Destination
Using your Can-Do List and Understandings
What could be inquiry questions you could now ask
associated with each of the understandings?
What could be an overall essential question you
could have that would guide the entire unit?
As you do this you must consider the real-life practical
applications of the topic being covered. Make this as real-
life as possible.
Identify
Desired
Results

27. Today’s workshop
Quick Review of the Planning Process
Can-Do List
Key Understandings and Essential Questions
Culminating Event and Checklist
Formative Rubric

28. Design a Culminating Event
Knowing what the students
should understand, know, and
be able to do …
Design a culminating event
(end product, performance,
event) that would allow the
students to demonstrate their
understandings.
Determine
Acceptable
Evidence

29. What is learning in the 21st Century?

30. Grade 6 History
Determine
Acceptable
Evidence

31. Year 7 Science – Chemical Science
Determine
Acceptable
Evidence

32. Design a Step by Step Checklist
Imagine that you are a student and you are going to tackle this
assignment / project. Start to create a checklist of the steps
you would take to successfully deliver an excellent end result.
Plan Learning
Experiences
and Instruction

33. Year 7 Maths Checklist
Plan Learning
Experiences
and Instruction

34. Today’s workshop
Quick Review of the Planning Process
Can-Do List
Key Understandings and Essential Questions
Culminating Event and Checklist
Formative Rubric

35. Assessment – Diagnostic, Formative, Summative
Research by John Hattie and Steven Dinham
“We are prepared to state categorically that if you focus
on providing students with improved, quality feedback
in individual classrooms, departments and schools you’ll
have an almost immediate positive effect.”
In all areas where people
are interested in
performance, it is the
embedded feedback
systems that allow the
greatest improvement.

36. Formative Rubrics to develop skills

37. Shifting Teaching Practice Takes Time
"One of the most difficult lessons
to master as we struggle to
create effective change is to learn
not to label something as bad just
because it is different from what
we are used to.“
Dr. William Glasser
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