Student Engagement with Digital Inquiry

        I decided to learn about integrating subjects using personal digital inquiry (PDI) when considering the student engagement levels I have observed in my own classroom. I wanted to learn a way to create lessons that engage my students in social studies content while utilizing more reading skills. PDI and digital inquiry are great ways to integrate subjects. PDI provides a groundwork for student engagement that centers on using inquiry to peak and maintain student interest. Coiro et al., (2016) referred to it as cultural forces for grounding and growing personal digital inquiry. These grounds can assist in building a learning environment that creates opportunities for students to build an inquiry mind-set (Coiro et al., 2016) and become more engaged in their learning experience (Dwyer, 2015). 

        Student engagement is sparked through teacher interactions and expectations. Teachers should have an expectation that students will focus on deep learning, teaching students to embrace challenges they may have and search for their own answers (Coiro et al., 2016). Interacting with students in a positive light, as they begin their research, demonstrates a positive attitude towards learning and discovery. Encouraging students to develop their own questions, search for answers, and then challenge the information they locate is an important aspect to successfully engaging students in digital inquiry. When teachers communicate and provide consistent feedback to students can feel more empowered and confident in the process and their decisions (Loon et al., 2012). Positive interactions should happen between teacher-to-student and student-to-student throughout the entire process. These positive interactions can be promoted and scaffold through collaboration and discussion opportunities. 

        Student collaboration is a necessary engagement component in personal digital inquiry. Coiro et al., (2016) state that learning is social and a part of a process that involves listening, speaking, processing information, and consensus building. Creating opportunities for students to collaborate ensures students make connections, negotiate differences, hear different perspectives, and share interest (Coiro et al., 2016). In collaboration students are able to challenge their own thinking, and at times, work towards a single goal with others.

 

        Structuring collaboration opportunities also provides more chances to facilitate student-to-student learning. Collaboration is a way to include instruction for students on all levels of learning. A great way to do this could be students completing projects relating to the same topic or discussing answers to questions they have researched. Coiro (2017) stated that learners grow and change when they are provided more opportunities to identify problems in their community, generate personal wonder, and engage in collaborative dialogue around problems or questions. Teachers should aim to transform a students' thinking and offer them an environment that encourages their wonder and discovery while also acknowledging the power of student collaboration. Schofield and Honore state that learners prefer and expect to have opportunities in the classroom that allow them to collaborative construct meaning, support each other’s thinking, and discuss new ideas and actions to take next (Coiro, 2017). While students collaborate it opens more chances to observe student understanding and model skills and strategies. 

        Modeling is an important aspect of getting students motivated to learn and keeping them engaged. When students feel lost or frustrated they are more likely to give up or feel discouraged. Learners should be provided with ample opportunities to observe models of how to make decisions and why those decisions are necessary (Coiro, 2017). Using a gradual release of responsibility formation will help mirror phases of instruction that are needed as students go throughout the digital inquiry process. It is a great way to not only ensure students are scaffolded through the process, but they are aware of the purpose of using certain skills and strategies at particular points. The more confident students feel in the process, the more independent their reading and discovery experience can be. Students build upon their knowledge as they are personally connected to a quest, while also being supported and feeling confident that the support will be there when needed. 

        Students become increasingly engaged as they are able to take their new found knowledge and create a representation of their understanding (Loon et al., 2012). Creation and participation are essential for knowledge construction and provide students with a variety of mediums to express their understanding. Students also explicitly tie their background knowledge and cultural experiences into their personal creation. This encourages students to make connections to their home, school, and community. Students first share their new found knowledge among their peers and with their teacher. Before and during the process it is necessary for teachers to keep student creative freedom in mind. Using purposeful digital tools, that have been selected with student electronic and web skills taken into account (Scanlon et al., 2011). Students cannot properly utilize tools that have not been modeled, they have little to no experience with, or have no purpose to their project. Allow students to have opportunities to consistently reflect on their progress throughout the project. Their final creation should reflect all of the hard work they have put into their learning. Self-reflection is a great way to help students become more understanding of their own learning and the process. Through this teachers can engage students and make a shift from engaging students to also empowering them to learn and create. 

Resource Videos:

Teaching Collaboration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Mb9-At2Ss0

Collaboration and Digital Tools

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3wBBdBdDRA

References

Coiro, J. (2017). Advancing Reading Engagement and Achievement through Personal Digital Inquiry, Critical Literacy, and Skillful Argumentation. Improving Reading and Reading Engagement in the 21st Century, 49–76. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4331-4_3

Coiro, J., Castek, J., & Quinn, D. J. (2016). Personal Inquiry and Online Research: Connecting Learners in Ways that Matter. The Reading Teacher, 69(5), 483-492. doi:10.1002/trtr.1450

Dwyer, B. (2015). Engaging All Students in Internet Research and Inquiry. The Reading Teacher, 69(4), 383–389. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1435

Loon, A.-M. V., Ros, A., & Martens, R. (2012). Motivated learning with digital learning tasks: what about autonomy and structure? Educational Technology Research and Development, 60(6), 1015–1032. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-012-9267-0

Scanlon, E., Anastopoulou, S., Kerawalla, L., & Mulholland, P. (2011). How technology resources can be used to represent personal inquiry and support students' understanding of it across contexts. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 27(6), 516-529. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2729.2011.00414.x

  

Learning Through Inquiry

 

        Students are often more engaged when concepts are related to their lives or have a purpose. They enjoy learning about things that are interesting to them and encourage creativity. Students often need to be presented with the opportunities to inquire about new topics and think deeply. Inquiry is a way to ensure that all students are engaged and using a variety of skills needed to be successful and career ready.

        The ability to ask questions is essential to learning, reading, understanding, and student development (Coiro, 2015). Teachers should aim to build a community of wonder in their classroom by using intentional and unplanned opportunities to capitalize on student curiosity. Inquiry based learning engages students as they become more positive, confident, and independent in their learning. As they work through their questions, they gain new knowledge and meaningful understandings (Coiro, et al., 2014). Through inquiry students are introduced to and learn about different perspectives and ways of communicating meaning. The inquiry process is not linear, but can follow a format to aid in student development and exploration.

        It is a great idea to begin framing inquiry instruction with an essential question or relating it to the current curriculum content being taught. Inquiry can help organize instruction around topics that students can bridge off of and according to Wilhelm and Wilhelm (2010), lead to the development of a studied knowledge. Asking essential questions can change the dynamic of the classroom, the questions can be teacher or student centered. Student generated questions, stemming from essential questions or topics, provide benefits of motivating both teachers and students to engage in exploration (Coiro, 2015). They also can aid in students knowing the purpose of their learning, assist them in finding their own connections, and can help highlight concepts and processes that may be useful (Wilhelm and Wilhelm, 2010). 

        The purpose of learning is an essential motivational tool for students. The digital tools and resources used, questions generated, and the process of inquiry should all be portrayed with a purpose to students. When students are able to place a purpose to their learning they become more engaged and motivated to continue developing their skills which can lead to an increase in student understanding (Corio et al., 2016). Engaging in inquiry-based learning without a purpose lowers student engagement and willingness to learn which can undermine and disenfranchise students from school (Wilhelm and Wilhelm, 2010). It is often that teachers can lose student engagement when activities, strategies, or processes do not have a reason and students do not want to learn or understand the content. 

        An additional way to encourage curiosity and learning through inquiry would be conducting a student survey or allowing students to ask additional questions on a curricular concept. When students are allowed to voice their own curiosities and questions it builds their confidence in realizing that their ideas and interest are important (Coiro et al., 2016). Currently in my classroom I am beginning to include an option for students to always list questions they have that pertain to the current concept. This provides me with more opportunities to learn about student interests, their current knowledge of concepts, and encourage curiosity in the classroom. When students begin to become more curious it is a great starting point for students to learn through inquiry. 

        Teachers can take time to show students how to build on their knowledge and search for new answers can encourage critical thinking skills as they create representations of their understanding. Modeling and scaffolding learning in a gradual release format that provides students with the support and independence they need. It is important to model and think aloud strategies that can help students generate interesting questions and access resources to answer the new questions they have (Coiro, 2015). When learning through inquiry students have to utilize a variety of literacy skills in knowing how to locate information, synthesize information they have learned in order to convey their new understanding. 

        Inquiry also provides teachers with the opportunity to include more student collaboration activities and strategies into the classroom. Students who are able to share and express their understanding with peers can learn from each other as they exchange questions and ideas. Coiro (2015) recommends inquiry buddies as a way to get students involved with searching through sources, materials, or generating new questions about related topics. From discussions and collaboration, they can continue to generate more ideas and utilize critical thinking skills to search for more knowledge. Students can then present information they have learned through a variety of projects that they create. 

        Projects can be assigned by the teachers, or student driven, and can easily tie into curriculum mandates or requirements. Consider watching the video below that provides more information on how student driven inquiry can be. To encourage student’s learning and consistent engagement in inquiry, it is important to provide students with a sense of choice and independence in their explorations and creation of products. Students who stake a personal claim or expression may create representations that require a deeper understanding of the material and may cause them to make connections to themselves and the world through their representation (Wilhelm and Wilhelm, 2010). Teachers can also structure tasks that scaffold students’ abilities to question, navigate, and negotiate the meaning of text online directly relating literacy skills into learning through inquiry (Coiro, et al., 2014). Providing students with particular projects that will allow them freedom of representation is a great way to model and scaffold understanding ensuring students utilize strategies and resources planned by the teacher.

Resource Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAYh4nWUkU0

References

Coiro, J. (2015). The Magic of Wondering. The Reading Teacher, 69(2), 189–193.                                  

https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1399

Coiro, J., Castek, J., & Quinn, D. J. (2016). Personal Inquiry and Online Research:                            

Connecting Learners in Ways that Matter. The Reading Teacher, 69(5),                                      

            483- 492. doi:10.1002/trtr.1450

Sekeres, D. C., Coiro, J., Castek, J., & Guzniczak, L. A. (2014). Wondering + Online                      

Inquiry = Learning. Phi Delta Kappa, 96(3), 44–48.                                     https://doi.org/10.1177/0031721714557452                                                        

Wilhelm, J. D., & Wilhelm, P. J. (2010). Inquiring Minds Learn to Read, Write, and                     

  Think: Reaching All Learners through Inquiry. Middle School Journal, 41(5),                             39-46. https://doi.org/10.1080/00940771.2010.11461738

What is PDI?

 Welcome!

    As a teacher it is always my goal to improve in all aspects of instruction and student learning. I'm interested in students being motivated to learn and engaged in their learning process. I want students to explore and build on skills using a wide variety of technology and strategies. Personal digital inquiry is a great way to include all levels or learner's while attending to standards and student motivation. Teachers can provide ample amounts of opportunities for students to intentionally learn new information that relates to their personal interest. PDI incorporates technology and outside resources to help students both navigate through and learn from a variety of different types of texts. 

Personal Digital Inquiry (PDI)

    Personal digital inquiry (PDI) is focused on a digital inquiry based learning process that encourages students to build upon questions, explore and discover content, collaborate, and create. Coiro, Doler, and Pelekis (2019) state that while engaging in PDI, both the students and teachers engage in collaborative discussion, analysis, and reflection that leads to students building their own knowledge, sharing their new knowledge, and expressing that new knowledge through personal actions. Teachers have a role in ensuring that the core sets of practices, wonder and discover, collaborate and discuss, create and take action, and analyze and reflect are put in place in order for students to have a successful personal inquiry-based learning process and experience. 

    A teacher's role in the process is extremely important and begins with building a personal relationship with the students. Positive relationships with teachers are the basics to helping students learn how to productively interact and learn from other people in their classroom and community. Teachers should aim to connect learning in ways that matter to the students. Connecting learnings begins with learning what student interests are and helping them learn to wonder and build their own questions. Teachers should convey that they care by providing consistent feedback throughout the process and showing students they value their interests and ideas by building a relationship that encourages creative ideas and expression (Coiro et al., 2019). Building the relationship first with students allows the personal component of personal digital inquiry to be at the forefront and brings importance to student personal preferences and allows teachers to support students as they plan for instruction. 

    The framework for personal digital inquiry places curiosity as the building foundation along with building relationships. Teachers should encourage students to be curious and generate questions often about topics they are interested in (Lee, 2014). As students wonder, discover, and inquire, students are engaged with a variety of new or old content that prompts students to generate their own questions and explore resources (Coiro et al., 2019). This portion of the process can encourage students to positively shape their own learning and can lead to students learning about real world problems related to their personal lives or communities. As students build on their questioning, the internet contains an ample amount of information that can increase students' awareness of the world around them and places students into self-directed inquiry that is purposeful (Coiro, 2015). 

    As students use resources to generate new questions students should be consistently provided with opportunities to collaborate and discuss in the classroom. Engaging in conversations about joint interest and sharing knowledge encourages students to value different perspectives and differences of other learners. Technology can cause students to be more engaged in their own personal quest for knowledge. Collaboration ensures that students learn how to work with their peers positively, consolidate ideas, and facilitate new literacy experiences (Coiro et al., 2016). Teachers should aim to model this collaboration process, teaching students how to interact with each other, argue effectively, and draw inferences from the new knowledge that is shared during collaboration and discussion. 

    As students research their wonders and engage in conversations about their new knowledge students can now create and participate in creating new products that will express their interest and understanding (Coiro et al., 2019). Student participation is a crucial step in the inquiry process and keeping students engaged in learning is the ultimate goal. Students can now assert their own autonomy and ownership of their learning and use a variety of platforms to show how their learning has developed (Lee, 2014). As students create a product they continue to engage in questions and discovery, as they gain experiences exploring and adding digital media to their final product and understanding. This allows students to continuously build new knowledge that relates to their personal project and provides them with an engaging way to link different connections in meaningful ways to their inquiry learning (Coiro et al., 2016). 

    Students bring together every core principle of learning as they analyze and reflect over the new knowledge they have learned, their creation, and the process of inquiry. Students should be modeled how to build on their understanding continuously and challenge themselves to think deeper throughout the PDI process. When students reflect on their choices they should be provided with the time and place to consider the content they have earned, the process they used to learn that information, and decided on what choices they can make to improve their understanding or their creation (Coiro et al., 2016). Reflection ensures that students are rethinking about their role in the process and can help teachers scaffold students' involvement.

  

    The personal digital learning framework has key practices that need to be understood and modeled for students in order to be successful. PDI is a personalized learning experience that includes student research content that can be related to curriculum. Each component is a cycling effect in which students are continuous building new questions as they discover new knowledge. As students find new knowledge they share and collaborate their understanding, encouraging them to think critically and in some cases generate new questions to answer. As students take this new knowledge, they can add to their creation and reflect on how the process is going. Teachers are there to guide students through this cycle as they build relationships with students and adjust planning to ensure all students are learning. 

References

Coiro, J. (2015). The Magic of Wondering. The Reading Teacher, 69(2), 189–193.   

https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1399

Coiro, J., Castek, J., & Quinn, D. J. (2016). Personal Inquiry and Online Research: 

Connecting Learners in Ways that Matter. The Reading Teacher, 69(5), 483-

492. doi:10.1002/trtr.1450

Coiro, J., Dobler, E., & Pelekis, K. (2019). From curiosity to deep learning: personal              digital inquiry in grades K-5. Stenhouse Publishers.

Lee, D. (2014). How to Personalize Learning in K-12 Schools: Five Essential Design                   Features. Educational Technology, 54(3), 12–17.                                                               https://doi.org/www.jstor.org/stable/44430266