Reflection+5

Reflection:

As an anticipatory set, our PLC group read the article “Getting "Inside Inquiry": Teachers' Questions Transform Their Practice [] As part of our exploration phase, we conduct a second reading. The article is called How Can Teacher Inquiry Help Achieve Equitable Outcomes for Students? **[|http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/518]**

After conducting our second reading, we came up with the following questions to discuss as a group:

1) How can educators focus on equity when doing teacher inquiry practices? 2) How can schools create a community of research educators that challenge themselves to develop plans on how to fight against racial differences among students within the school community? 3) Are the documentations and tools of the TRC participants who lead the equity focused inquiry groups successful? This question was related to the second article.

As a group, make a list of teaching strategies of your own about which you have a wondering. You probably have things in common! Take turns selecting one to focus on and formulating a “wondering” about that strategy. Help each member to make a plan to initiate, analyze, and write-up this inquiry? What questions does each member have that the group can help sort out about the process?


 * Activity: Set up wondering topics or issues for discussion: **
 * ** Implementing a possible solution for students in the earlier grades who tend to take bathroom breaks or a drink of water every twenty minutes. **
 * ** Time management in the classroom when doing a lesson. **
 * // How can you incorporate high level thinking questions when the students are below grade level? //

// Teaching Strategies: //
 * ** A good way to try to solve the bathroom breaks problem would be to implement the use of tickets. The students will have two tickets per day in addition to their whole group bathroom break. **
 * ** Incorporating teaching topics across different subject areas to ensure efficacy in time management when teaching a lesson. **
 * ** Providing opportunities for students to engage in meaningful activities to incorporate higher level thinking questions and try to provide more experiences for those students that have limited access. **

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 * 1) As a group, reflect on what you have learned today about studying your own teaching practice.
 * We learned that many of us have questions regarding issues and strategies within the classrooms.
 * Teachers should ask questions to make room for improvement and to help adapt our teaching to our own class.
 * The teacher’s job would not have a meaningful outcome if they do not question themselves or their teaching practices. The students would be absorbing the information without making sense or comprehending the material.

2. As a group, draft a brief statement (approx 1-2 paragraphs) of what you learned or new understandings you came to during this discussion.

As a group we learned that teacher inquiry helps us reflect on the strategies that we will use in our future classroom. Teacher inquiry helps us modify and adjust to the students needs when we realize that something is not working in the class. We also agree that it is important to create an environment that will help students develop a sense of curiosity that will lead to discovery. Students will benefit if the teacher becomes more reflective of his or her own teaching practices. We know that we have learned because we were able to discuss our own wondering and find ways to manipulate or find a solution the problem.