Scenario for supporting Question-Driven Learning
with digital mind mapping
1.
Prototype III
2014- 2015
Contents
Introduction to the scenario ... 3
0: Preparation ... 4
1: Introduction ... 6
2a: Inventory of collective prior knowledge ... Error! Bookmark not defined. 2b: Inventory of individual prior knowledge ... 10
2c: Structuring prior knowledge... 12
2d: Orientation on prior knowledge ... 14
3a: Generating phase: question brainstorm... 16
3b: Generating phase: question evaluation ... 18
3c: Generating phase: linking question input ... 20
3d: Generating phase: question selection... 22
3e: Generating phase: question "adoption"... 24
4a: Guiding questions: preparing for inquiry... 26
4 : Guidi g uestio s: i ui y i a tio ... 28
4c: Guiding questions: answering ... 30
5a: Building Knowledge: visualize knowledge construction... 32
5b: Building Knowledge: progressive inquiry ... 34
6a: Evaluation phase: individual knowledge ... 36
6b: Evaluation phase: collective knowledge... 38
6c: Evaluation phase: metacognitive development ... 40
Appendix 1: mind map instruction... 42
Introduction to the scenario
In Question-Driven Learning (QDL) students generate, formulate and investigate their own questions in order to develop new knowledge and understanding. Students con-struct collective knowledge by sharing learning outcomes of individual questions with their class mates by means of a Classroom Mind Map.
This scenario was designed to support teachers in designing, guiding and evaluating Question-Driven Learning. Digital mind mapping is used in this scenario whenever rel-evant and functional in preparing, executing and evaluating QDL.
The scenario consists of 5 phases. Each phase contains several steps, which are de-scribed in chronological order. For each step an illustration and a compact description of its characteristics are given. To scaffold each step some practical advice for the
0: Preparation
Elaboration
Key concepts
Characteristics of: preparation
Core concepts about the subject and their mutual relations are set as goals and are visualized in the Teacher Mind Map. In the Teacher Mind Map a distinction is made between the core curriculum (consisting of key concepts) and elaboration.
Constructing a Teacher Mind Map in the preparation phase is a necessary step to dis-tinguish the core curriculum and helps teachers to anticipate constructing a Class-room Mind Map which will consist of stude ts p io k o ledge.
Tip:
First, prepare an individual Mind Map and then collaborate with colleagues to
con-st u t a olle ti e Tea he s Mi d Map. The ad a tage of this app oa h is that you
1: Introduction
Characteristics of: introduction
The aim of the introduction is to raise attention for the subject, to stimulate an inves-tigative stance and to activate prior knowledge.
The chosen introduction therefore needs to address the most import aspects of the subject and has to induce curiosity.
Tips:
Check if all important key concepts in the mind map are addressed in the introduction. The introduction is the key to activating the appropriate prior knowledge.
2a: inventory of collective prior knowledge
introduction
classroom discussion
keywords on IWB in field of words students make
private notes of associations
motivate & arouse interest
10 min.
What do you know already?
"slow thinking"
Characteristics of: inventory of collective prior knowledge
By making inventory of collective prior knowledge it is made visible to all students what is already known about the subject. It is more effective to make inventory about the specific key concepts than about the subject as a whole
By the exchange of ideas in class passive knowledge might be activated in students:
“O yes, I have seen or heard this before…
This inventory is the basis for the construction of the Classroom Mind Map.
Tips:
Allow the students time to think individually and ask them to note their ideas and
as-sociations before having the lass oo dis ussio . This foste s the stude ts e
gage-ment and the quality of their input.
In the classroom discussion any input is welcome, as long as students can clarify how their input is connected to the key concepts. This often leads to the discovery of re-markable points of view. If any of the expected key concepts are missing, give hints to
2b: Inventory of individual prior knowledge
individual prior knowledge test
Characteristics of: inventory of individual prior knowledge
Students construct an individual mind map as a pre-test to
make individual pre- knowledge visible
explore possible topics for questioning
to assess possible learning outcomes afterwards.
Tips:
Make sure the conditions in pre- and posttest are identical, in order to be able to make proper comparison possible. Allow students about 30-45 minutes to make the mind map and make sure the field of words is no longer visible. Insist on individual work without consultation.
Assure your students: This mind map is not a examination for a grade, but simply an
inventory of what you now know about this subject.
2c: Structuring prior knowledge
Characteristics of: structuring prior knowledge
Teachers help students to structure prior knowledge into a Classroom Mind Map, while keeping the key concepts and structure of the Teacher Mind Map in the back of their minds.
First, the Field of Words is organized into Word Clusters and then a more detailed structure is established in the Classroom Mind Map.
The Classroom Mind Map visualizes the present state of understanding and offers a visible structure of the subject to which individual questions can be linked.
Tips:
Involve students in the construction of Word Cluster and Classroom Mind Map
Ask, while clustering, which concepts are related.
Pay attention to differences and similarities between concepts.
Ask students how to name the clusters.
2d: Orientation on prior knowledge
Classroom Mind Map
Student explore the concepts in the mind map using various
resources
Concepts in the Classroom Mind Map are explored
Did you know?
Characteristics of: structuring prior knowledge
Student have the opportunity to explore the (key) concepts which are imbedded in the Classroom Mind Map in various resources: books, internet, atlas, dictionaries etc.
Students add remarkable facts or observations about the concepts as notes to the digital Class Room Mind Map: Did you know that…?
Tips:
Provide students with ample suitable resources about the topic, such as informative books or a selection of websites.
Ask students which remarkable facts or ideas about the concepts they have encoun-tered in the resources and which information they want to share in class.
3a: Generating phase: question brainstorm
Characteristics of: question brainstorm
Provide a trigger to the students (object, image, statement) which arouses wonder-ment or cognitive conflict about one of the key concepts. Request students to contin-uously ask questions in small groups. All questions are written down. During the exer-cise students are not allowed to answer or to react to the questions, because this
might disturb the flow of questioning. The exercise might take about 7 till 10 minutes. Afterwards the students can process the questions in several ways, but
recom-mended is to ask each small group to select their most interesting questions.
Tips:
The choice for the trigger is crucial. The trigger should be related to one of the key concepts and should arouse wonderment or cognitive conflict.
Modelling the questioning before the whole group is advisory when doing this exer-cise for the first time. Do not stop the exerexer-cise when the questioning seems to come
to a hold. Often, when the ost appa e t uestio s a e finished , the more creative
3b: Generating phase: question evaluation
Collective effort to improve question quality
Groups exchange question-selection Value each others questions
Give suggestions for improvement
How?
Why?
What?
?
Relevance Feasibility
Characteristics of: question evaluation
Students pass their selection of questions to another small group. Within the small groups the questions are discussed: Is the question relevant to the topic? What will we learn from this question as a classroom community? How might we improve the learning potential? Is the question investigable within given time, and resources? How could we make this question more investigable? The questions are peer re-viewed on the basis of these criteria. Each group formulates at least one suggestion for improvement.
Tips:
Make students aware of the goals of questioning: explore new subjects, follow curios-ity to elaborate knowledge, check assumptions. Explain that all questions together will contribute to building collective knowledge.
The fu da e tal assu ptio i e aluati g uestio s is: Every question has potential
Characteristics of: linking question input
All generated questions, which were evaluated and valued as suitable in the small groups, are linked to the Classroom Mind Map.
Then the question input is evaluated in the learning community: These are our ques-tions. Are we content with these questions? Are all our questions clear, or should some be clarified or specified? Are we missing out on some aspects in the CMM?
Tips:
Order the questions according to the main branches in the mind map and specify for each question which concept is addressed.
3d: Generating phase: question selection
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Characteristics of: question selection
Students and teacher discuss which questions are important and have priority for in-quiry and which questions might be suitable in a later stage.
The selected questions are made visible in the Classroom Mind Map as by adding notes to the relevant concepts.
Tip:
When selecting questions think of the adagio: Less is more. When starting to work
with the scenario you might prefer being successful in guiding 6-10 questions to an appropriate answer, than trying to guide 25-30 questions and loosing track. In time you can increase the number of questions you allow your students to investigate.
3e: Generating phase: question "adoption"
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Characteristics of: question adoption
When is established which questions are selected by the learning community, stu-dents can choose which question they might like to work on. Stustu-dents can choose their own questions, but also can choose a question posed by a classmate.
Students are asked to assume responsibility for a question. Students can adopt a question individually, but can also operate in dyads or in small groups.
The whole classroom community shares the responsibility for the questions. This al-lows students to adopt a question of their choice but also means students have the obligation to put in an effort to come to an answer and share the answer with the whole class
Tip:
4a: Guiding questions: preparing for inquiry
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Characteristics of: preparing for inquiry
Before starting inquiry students record their adopted question on a worksheet and specify which concept is addressed in the CMM. Students also try to predict a possible answer, for this can be helpful in activating prior knowledge. Finally, the intended re-search strategy is written down, so the teacher can evaluate if the student is ready to start the inquiry.
Tip:
Predicting a possible answer is difficult for most students and scaffolding might be
necessary. Start by explaining the rationale for predicting and do not accept I don t
know for an answer, but rather model how to make an educated guess.
Students might also need some scaffolding in their search strategy. Show all available resources (not only google ), stress the need for intelligent searching (using
4b: Guiding questions: inquiry in action
Characteristics of: inquiry in action
Student investigate their chosen questions individually or in small groups. Dependent on the type of question the inquiry might be characterized as retrieval (exploring
existing knowledge) or experimental (when new knowledge can be produced).
Tips:
The availability of suitable resources is the key to the success of retrieval inquiry. Teachers can organize easy access to selected resources by lending books or collect-ing suitable websites. Durcollect-ing the process students should be stimulated to exchange suitable resources for example by adding links to the Classroom Mind Map
In experimental inquiry it is important that students ask operational questions which are suitable for hands-on inquiry. To evoke this type of questions, specific question stems can be used, such as:
What if…….?
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4c: Guiding questions: answering
Characteristics of: answering
Learning outcomes of the adopted questions are both recorded on the individual worksheets as well as linked to the Classroom Mind Map.
Ask students to record how they have come up with an answer, in order to reflect on the feasibility of the question and their inquiry strategies.
Learning outcomes can be exchanged in the learning community in various forms, for example: textual (poster, report, blog) creative (maquette, construction), communica-tive (discussion, debate) of expressive (drama, dance, mime). The other students
might evaluate the clarity and appropriateness of the outcomes for answering the question.
Tips:
5a: Building Knowledge: visualize knowledge construction
Classroom Mind Map week 1 Classroom Mind Map week 2 Classroom Mind Map week 6
Characteristics of: visualize knowledge construction
The outcomes of the individual questions are the building blocks for the construction of collective knowledge. Students in a community of learners share responsibility for collective knowledge construction.
The outcomes of learning can be made visible in the Classroom Mind Map. By saving a version of the CMM every time it has been elaborated upon or changed, it becomes possible to track its development.
Regular classroom discussions about the development of collective knowledge in the CMM contributes to attaining the curriculum.
Tips:
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Answers lead to
new questions
Both
‘
fact-seeking
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as
well as ‘
hands-on
’
questioning facilitate knowledge building
Characteristics of: progressive inquiry
Asking and investigating questions is an ongoing process. Answers might lead to new questions. Stimulate students to ask follow-up questions to explore a subject in
depth.
Stimulate not only basic information questions, which can be answered studying books or the internet, but try also stimulate students to construct their own
knowledge by experiments and exploration of the physical and social reality they live in.
Tips:
The digital Classroom Mind Map can be used as a data repository by using links to notes, documents, websites or interesting YouTube clips on specific branches.
6a: Evaluation phase: individual knowledge
Compare prior knowledge with constructed knowledge in individual mindmap
prior knowledge test knowledge test
Characteristics of: evaluating individual knowledge
After finishing the scenario all students construct an individual mindmap as posttest. By comparing pretest with the posttest aspects of the cognitive development become apparent.
Tips:
Reassure the students about this test: This is just a method to show to yourself what
you have learned.
Establish similar conditions for the posttest as for the pretest. Allow for some 30- 45 minutes, and make sure no information about the subject is visible in class.
By letting students compare pretest with posttest themselves, they may become
6b: Evaluation phase: collective knowledge
Compare prior knowledge with constructed knowledge in the CMM
Characteristics of: evaluating collective knowledge
Teachers can evaluate if the goals they have set in the Teachers Mind Map were at-tained by comparing it with the Classroom Mind Map.
Students can evaluate the collective knowledge construction by comparing the first with last version of the Classroom Mind Map.
Tips:
Discuss differences between the original goals and the final version of the CMM
Are some key concepts missing and or changed the focus on the subject?
Which key concepts were used by the students in the posttest mind maps?
Which new knowledge is apparent in the posttest mind maps?
Is the choice of key concepts in the Teacher Mind Map still appropriate?
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6c: Evaluation phase: metacognitive development
Contribution of questions to development of Classroom Mind Map
Characteristics of: evaluating metacognitive development
Students and teacher can evaluate together: What was the significance of the ques-tions for individual and/or collective knowledge development?
Tips:
Discuss with students what they have learned about formulating and inquiring into the questions?
Was the expected relevance, feasibility and learning potential realized?
Which questions contributed to significant changes in the CMM?
Did progressive inquiry come about, if so how?
Appendix 2: Questions to coach question behavior
Why? (relevance)- is your question relevant?
Why do you want to know this?
What do you already know?
How can we connect your question to the mind map?
How is your question connected to this concept?
How? (feasibility)- can your question be investigated ?
How do you want to investigate your question?
Who or what do you need?
With who or what in the mind map could you collaborate?
Where can you find information?
How can you organize and plan your investigation?
What? (learning potential)- what will you and your classmates learn from this questions?
What would you like to learn?
Will the question in this from help you?
What do you expect the answer to be?- make a prediction
How will present the learning outcomes (in the mind map?)
Appendix 3: question work sheet (prototype III)
My name is: I am in grade:
My teacher is:
This is my question:
This is the key concept in my question:
My prediction:
I hope to find the answer by:
This is my answer:
How did I find an answer:
Tips /Tops?:
