Mini Lesson

What went well in your teaching? Based on what you learned as an instructor, what changes would you make next time?
I think my mini lesson included all of the appropriate steps and was written in a way so that any teacher could follow the directions. I tried to give the appropriate background before the mini lesson which actually occurs on the second day. The background information ended up being rather lengthy for a second grader. However, if I were to really teach this lesson, the students would have already had day one’s instruction and so it was not really an accurate scenario. Additionally, I had trouble describing to my learner certain ideas such as what the “office” button is. If I were to really give this mini lesson, I would demonstrate as I was explaining so that the students can actually see what I am doing.
Teaching of this mini lesson was beneficial to me because my learner pointed out a couple of mistakes that I had made, such as not explicitly telling students to “left” click. Because of her feedback, I will be able to go back and make a few corrections before turning in the final webquest.

Inquiry Lesson

Based on your learning experience in the LifeSaver lesson, describe the attributes of inquiry learning.

The purpose of inquiry learning is to find out about a topic through asking questions. It is systematic and goes through a series of steps. First analyze your materials and resources and determine what can be discovered using what is available. Then it can be beneficial to brainstorm possible questions and ideas. Next, one might determine what steps to go through to find out the answer to the inquiry. The next step is to conduct the experiment or research, while keeping track of the data. Sometimes this can be done easier using Excel. Afterward, an analysis of the results must be done to determine if the original inquiry was answered and to prompt further questioning in the future.

An inquiry assignment would be a great thing to teach to students. I think of all of the individual students who ask individual questions about topics. Teaching them how to find an answer to their inquiries using this approach, would give them just one more tool on how to be active in their own learning.