Category: Inspiring Inquiry

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Provocation Into Recycling, Sustainability, & Making a Difference through Creativity

These two videos have really caught my eye lately. The first is entitled, “Washed Ashore, Art to Save the Sea:”

The second is one I used in an inquiry into inquiry with some teachers last month, in which artist Phil Hansen shares his experience when he developed a tremor in his hands:

Provocation Questions:

  • How does using (or reusing) what we already have impact our lives?
  • How can our limitations or problems provide opportunities?
  • What role does creativity play in solving problems?
  • How is recycling connected to creativity?
  • What is our responsibility to use our creative talents to improve the world?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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Idioms that Don’t Translate & More for A Language Provocation

So embedded are our own culture’s idiosyncrasies that we generally take them for granted. This is particularly true when it comes to our idioms. That’s why, when I came across this list of 40 idioms that don’t translate on TED-Ed, I just knew it would make an intriguing provocation.

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via TED-Ed

Other resources for students inquiring into language might include this animated map of “how Indo-European languages may have evolved:”

Or this video, also from TED-Ed on how our languages evolve (might be a little complex for younger students, but you never know…):

Provocation Questions:

  • Why do humans use figurative language?
  • How do you think idioms from certain countries are related to the way of life in that country?
  • How does language diversity affect our world?
  • How are human beings connected through language even when we speak different words?
  • How does becoming more fluent (readers and writers) in our own language help us? How does studying other languages help us?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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Inquiry Into Tech Use, Twitter Edition

Last week, I shared an inquiry into tech use provocation that teachers can use with their students to consider its effects on them as individuals, as families, as communities, and as a world.

I also spent part of last Monday running some PD sessions at my old school (one on inquiry, and two on tech use).

The most rewarding moment during my tech sessions was when teacher told me as she left, “You made me think differently about Twitter!” Mission accomplished!

Of course, Twitter is just one piece in the puzzle of effective and innovative edtech, but there really is something special about it when it comes to becoming global citizens as teachers and students! So this week’s provocation is going to consist of examples of how Twitter can impact student learning, a worthwhile possible investigation for both teachers and students…

  • Example 1: These 3rd graders found this animal skeleton on their campus. Study “Approach C” for their Twitter use example.

Unidentified skeleton found on school campus

  • Example 2: 7th grade teacher, Pernille Ripp, searching for refugees to Skype with her students. See the breathtaking results of that Tweet here.

  • Example 3: This 5th grade teacher started with the tweet below with a link to a Google Slides global collaboration…

…and a month later, here’s a glimpse of her class investigating it:

  • Examples 4/5: And here are a couple of current ongoing requests to which you can contribute today:


Provocation Questions:

  • What do you notice about the way these individuals reached out to others on Twitter?
  • What do you notice about each of these teachers’ Twitter profiles?
  • What do you notice about the resulting responses?
  • Why do you think some got more responses than others?
  • How do you think these students benefited by reaching out to the world through Twitter?
  • What do you think are the challenges of using Twitter as students and teachers?

featured image: Mister G.C.

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An Inquiry Into Tech Use

By show of hands, who else is exhausted by the ping-pong-like opinions on tech use whizzing by?

One side: “We’re disconnected, we’re not missing anything when we cut screen time, our children aren’t getting enough exercise, we don’t carry on proper conversations anymore.”

And the other: “We’re more connected than ever on a global scale, accessibility is growing, we are finding new ways to connect with our loved ones, we are building new literacies.”

Author Alison Gopnik recently said in an Edutopia interview,

“We tend to panic too much about technological change. Maybe this time the technology is, in fact, going to have all these disastrous effects that everyone’s worried about. But children have always been the first adopters of new technologies, and the previous generation has always been terrified when the new technology was introduced…

But school-age children have been gossiping and interacting with one another and trying to figure out peer relationships for as long as we’ve been human. And the way that they’ve done that might have been just whispering and talking in that hunter-gatherer culture, or passing notes in the culture that I grew up in, or texting in the culture that children are growing up in now. I don’t think there’s any particular reason to believe that the technology is going to make that worse or more problematic than it was before.”

So, this week’s provocation is to let those children consider both sides of this tech issue themselves. The first resource is a photo series by Eric Pickersgill entitled “Removed.”

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The second is a video I’ve shared before, but that I think would pair well with the above resource for this provocation. The Millennial Rebuttal by Welzoo:

Provocation Questions:

  • Why do people have different perspectives about technology use?
  • How does tech use impact your life?
  • How does tech use impact your family’s life?
  • How does tech use impact your school/community function?
  • How do you see tech use impacting your future?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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A Provocation Into Who We Are & Reflection

This is part of a series of inquiry-based provocations for essential elements of the PYP. For more, click here. 

In the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (IB PYP), teachers organize their curriculum into six units of inquiry with broad titles. One of them is designated as the “Who We Are” unit, and it’s always a pleasure to watch my students investigate the central idea within this framework. A powerful resource to help provoke their thinking is a photo series by Tom Hussey called, “Reflections” (see his site for more).

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Provocation Questions

  • What does reflection look like for you?
  • How does reflection help us figure out who we are?
  • How does looking back help us move forward?
  • Why is reflection sometimes difficult for people?
  • How does the process of reflection change for people over time?
  • What causes people to become more interested in reflecting?

featured image: Shin-ichi Ueda

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The Evolution of Innovation (2 Videos)

This week’s provocation centers around getting students to reflect on change and innovation.

Resource #1: “The Evolution of the Desk” from BestReviews (see original here)

Resource #2: Did You Know 3.0 by VideoShredHead

Provocation Questions:

  • What do you think the desk in the first video will look like in 5 more years? 50 more years? (See one educator’s predictions of 21 things that will be obsolete by 2020)
  • How does society change as people’s resources change?
  • How do people’s individual lives change as their resources change?
  • Why are we sometimes reluctant to accept change? What are the consequences (positive? negative?) of accepting change quickly/slowly?
  • How does #edtech impact learning?
  • How has preparation for the future changed since our parents/grandparents were growing up? How do we prepare for such an unknown future now?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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Provocation: To Thine Own Self Be True

I want to start this week’s provocation article by re-sharing a quote from Paul Solarz that was included in Adam Hill’s post on launching Genius Hour with his students:

“Too many children today go to school only to bide their time until they get home and do something that truly interests them.”

Paul Solarz, Learn like a PIRATE

The more I think about this, the more it makes sense that those same children grow up to continue to spend large blocks of their lives–even careers–“biding their time until they get…to do something that truly interests them.”

Meanwhile, they might never truly learn what their own passions are, let alone practice them.

To me, it all comes down to assumptions. How we should spend our time, our money, our relationships, our energy, our intelligence–it’s all dictated based on preconceived notions from, well, almost everyone around us.

Today, I want to share two resources that rock that idea to the core. The first is a beautiful autobiographical comic by Zen Pencils from a speech by Bill Watterson–a man who turned down millions of dollars to authentically pursue his passion and craft.

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The second is a video entitled “The Millennial Rebuttal” by Welzoo & Column Five.

You might take a look at these provocation resources and think, “Yeah, but tomorrow, I need to teach fractions, phonics, and the anatomy of an apple. What place does this have in my instruction?”

The answer is, the highest place. Untraining students from the dependency on others’ assumptions will help them better familiarize themselves with their passions, develop their critical thinking, unlock their ability to problem-solve creatively, and own their learning process.  We have trained our students to sit passively and wait to be told what the priority is long enough. It’s time to help them look at the big picture, and to discover what matters most.

Provocation Questions:

  • Why are cultural messages (“they say”) often at odds with reality? Where do they come from?
  • What are other cultural messages you’ve heard that don’t line up with your experience/values?
  • What does it mean to “invent your own life’s meaning?”
  • To assume means to act like you know something about a person or how something should look based on your experiences. How do assumptions impact individuals and societies?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto