Using the Inquiry Page in a High School Classroom

1
Using the Inquiry Page in a High School Classroom

• Anuradha Datta Murphy
• Graduate Student, Dept. of Molecular and
  Integrative Physiology,
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

2
Introduction

• GK-12 Graduate Fellowship Program
  http//gk12.ncsa.uiuc.edu/
• Collaborating with Marijon Stites, a
  life-sciences teacher at Oakland High School, and
  her two 10th grade classes
• Inquiry Page introduced as part of Education
  Technology tools for use in high school
  classrooms (along with Stella, Biology Student
  Workbench, ChemViz, etc.)

3
Using CIL/ Inquiry Units

• CIL built for class http//inquiry.uiuc.edu/cil/o
  ut.php?cilid111
• Inquiry Units for the class are displayed on CIL
  page, easily accessible
• New Inquiry Units added as new topics for
  discussion introduced in classroom

4
Using CIL/ Inquiry Units (contd.)

• Useful information stored in Inquiry Units for
  each topic
• interesting websites relating to topic
• locate Education Technology tools for more
  in-depth study
• store/access class announcements, questions,
  Power Point presentations

5
Learning to use the Inquiry Page

• Students registered to use the Inquiry Page,
  learned how to create their own Inquiry Units,
  uploaded Power Point presentations to individual
  Inquiry Units in one class hour
• Found the interface easy to use

6
Concerns/Problems

• Most students did not have e-mail accounts (for
  registering into the Inquiry Page)
• Teacher and school administrators did not want
  the students work displayed for universal access
  on the web
• Students had varying degrees of familiarity with
  computer use and the world wide web
• Some students forgot passwords, but could not
  have them e-mailed (!)

7
Fixes

• Created fake student e-mail addresses to use as
  logins (ex jdoe_at_oakland.edu)
• Created a restricted-access Inquiry Group
  Inquiry Units created within this group can be
  viewed only by members of the Oakland High School
  group

8
Closing Notes

• Students are enthusiastic about creating and
  viewing each others Inquiry Units
• Class teacher is excited about expanding
  resources available to her class, including
  web-based tools and the Inquiry Page for teaching
• Students using computer labs at school to study
  science

9
Closing Notes (Contd.)

• Inquiry Page enables access to classroom material
  from any site that has web-access

10
Acknowledgements

• I thank the GK-12 program for giving me a great
  opportunity to work in a high school classroom.
  I have learned a lot about education technology
  and gained valuable insights into how science is
  taught at different levels.