Robust Inquiry

One of our school division initiatives this year is a partnership between the teacher-librarian and a teacher at every elementary school in the division. Each term, the learning partners will have an opportunity to attend a robust inquiry professional development session and will also be provided with a .5 day to plan. The goal of the robust inquiry project, as outlined by the Saskatoon Public School Division is to:

•      Build a robust inquiry question that is authentic, significant, and relevant to students' learning
•      Develop an outline that details the facilitation of rigorous worthy inquiry tasks
•      What are the milestones or benchmarks for classroom projects?
•      What is my readiness for processes and skills needed for this project?
•      What is my role(s) and opportunities in growing project successes?
•      Have I fostered transformational technology use as outlined in the H.E.A.T. Spectrum?
•      Foster the use of affinity groups (Learning Circles/PLN/Social Media) for furthering learning and celebrating student successes

      This term, Ms.Elliot and Mrs.Kulyk attended the Robust Inquiry session and have co-planned a grade 3/4 inquiry unit around the topic of rocks, minerals and soil.  The "big" question that the students will be exploring is, "Why are rocks, minerals, and soil important to us?"