Inquiry Based Learning for K-8 Teachers Explained

Vicki Davis (00:05): Today’s episode is brought to you by the Educators Studio from Van Andel Institute for Education. If you’re a K through eight STEM teacher looking for classroom-tested lessons, hands-on projects, and time-saving professional development, you can get an annual membership for only $9.99 using the promo code COOLCAT. More on this after the show.

Vicki Davis (00:32): Terra Tarango is the Chief Education Officer at Van Andel Institute for Education, where she works with teachers to design inquiry-rich, hands-on learning that is realistic in today’s classrooms. Terra has spent more than two decades in curriculum, PD, nonprofit work, helping educators turn curiosity into meaningful projects, rather than just one more thing on our to-do list.

So Terra, let’s start off. So you have Educator’s Studio. So do you have all of these like theme ideas right there in the studio?

Terra Tarango (01:08): Yeah, so we’re a nonprofit. So really all we’re about is trying to help educators’ jobs be a smidge easier. I’d like to say if I can be a teacher fairy godmother, that’s what I want to be because the job is just too hard — too important to be as hard as it is. We put everything that we have in there. Whether it’s these timely topics, things like March Madness.

Terra Tarango (01:25): All those are in there for timely topics, as well as just games and activities. Another fun one is Beat the Bot. If you ever did Beat the Calculator in school, this is the new version. Now students are going to be asked to demonstrate how they can bring value that AI can’t. We put a bunch of prompts into it in just different content areas. You can pick content areas — math, ELA, science — and then there’s questions and we ask the students, which of these questions do you think you could answer better than AI?

And then we show them AI’s response and not hide from it. Let’s let them look at it and see, okay, how can I bring my humaneness to this? Because that’s what I’m going to need to bring to show my value going forward.

Vicki Davis (02:00): So you have a lot more than science in there. You have other subjects.

Terra Tarango (02:03): A lot of it’s cross-curricular because if you think about, especially K-5, we’re teaching all of the content areas. So sometimes it’s just a matter of how do you sneak the broccoli into the broccoli cheese casserole kind of thing? How do you get some science in there? Especially if you feel like you don’t have time for science — like I get that we’re a science place. Of course I want that. But remember that’s what the scientists said was most important: critical thinking, creative thinking, perseverance. So if you’re doing those skills, you are actually helping teach science.

Terra Tarango (02:29): I’m not saying we shouldn’t try to find time to put in that content as well. And we do offer science lessons, but we offer project-based learning units, things that you can get all the different content areas in around one authentic purpose. Sometimes it’s a matter of there’s just not enough time in the day. So if we can sneak in those skills, sneak in a little bit of science content here and there, let’s call that a win.

Vicki Davis (02:47): Let’s take one typical class period, 30, 45 minutes, depending on the age. Take us through a single inquiry-rich lesson that you just love.

Terra Tarango (02:56): I have to go one step further and do one that’s a five-lesson series, a way to make project-based learning, which can sometimes feel so overwhelming and so burdensome. And we kind of created these ones that are just five lessons and each lesson focuses on a different content area. So it’s a way to have one authentic context, but still get that cross-curricular feel. So this one’s on — it’s a kindergarten lesson and it’s on saving the bees.

And so the first lesson is all about science. So you’re learning about bees and pollination and why that’s important for the earth. And then the second lesson is they get into math. They get to actually pretend to be bees and go around and count how many flowers they could get and things like that. And then they end up learning social-emotional learning as they get to — well, then we go into actually building their houses. They’re going to build some mason bee houses. So we do a day of that.

Then the social-emotional learning piece comes in and giving feedback. We often treat that like a content area. So the fourth lesson is, all right, let’s give each other feedback on our houses, a little protocol for that so we learn how to communicate with one another. And then ELA is the last day, the fifth lesson, where they get to share these mason bee houses with their community, with their family as they come in. We like to say, let’s do something where we make the world a better place. And they’re invested in that.

Terra Tarango (04:09): But you were able to teach math, science, social studies, and ELA, and social-emotional learning along the way.

Vicki Davis (04:14): What does ethical PD look like and how does it shape what you do?

Terra Tarango (04:18): One is that our folks that do professional development are in the classroom. They’re trying these things with their own students and able to share what works best.

And then two is being very mindful of the teacher’s time. In a PD session, I just think teacher time is infinitely more valuable than regular people time. We’re checking in and we’re making sure at the beginning that we’re all on the same page about what is it that you need to be useful — to come out of something that you can use.

The favorite thing that teachers have always liked when we do our professional development, or for lack of better word, just the strategies, just quick ideas. Here’s a protocol — giving just little things like that. One of my favorite things we did is put all of those — there’s like 300 of them — in something called a Teacher Strategy Vault, where you can search it. I want things to help with creative thinking, or I want things to help with classroom management. Just all those ideas that I just feel like as a collective of great teachers.

Terra Tarango (05:05): Over decades and decades, or new ideas as well, all kind of in a place to just find those. So I think if PD spends too much time on theory, or it spends too much time on ideas that are great but not practical in the classroom, that’s just unethical. It’s not a good use of a teacher’s time. And so making sure it’s relevant and practical is key.

Vicki Davis (05:23): Well, I love teachers to come out of any session I do with something they can use tomorrow or something they can use next week because otherwise sitting in PD for four hours, they’ve just made more work because they have more work to grade and they have all their lesson plans to do. And so you’re right. The best PD takes a load off. The worst PD doesn’t model what it teaches — listening to six hours of lecture about differentiated instruction.

Or project-based learning. Like, seriously? And I think teachers know that. I think the other thing that I think is really good is there are so many places that you can get lesson plans now. And of course you can get AI to write lesson plans, but that human filter of actually having scientists look at the lesson plans and help with the lesson plans and then test them with kids — and that means there’s a real human element.

To all these ideas that you’re giving of, okay, we’ve actually done this, but this also holds water with the science community of, this is something we need to teach. This is how we need to teach. And this really reflects true science. I think that valuing humans — the human role in education — is just so important. And that’s what I like about what you’re describing to me.

Terra, and you and I talked about this before the show. So many people are coming into education without an education background. I was one of those 24 years ago. I think it’s important to be connecting with people who do this and do this well. I mean, what concerns you as you look at science education today? Like you said, all those people with big hearts. We have people with great big hearts who want to do a great big job, right?

Vicki Davis (07:02): But there’s some practical things that we have to do with our PD, don’t we?

Terra Tarango (07:06): When you asked sort of what concerns me the most, I don’t have a great answer for it, but I will just share it in a spirit of acknowledgment — is that I do feel like something has really changed in the way we as a society view teachers. Teachers used to be revered and respected in a way that I just feel like isn’t quite there anymore. It was a hard job and now it’s even harder because you don’t feel like the community is behind you the way it used to.

Terra Tarango (07:30): I’ll give you an example. It was something that we were talking about and I got an interview question from a parent just saying, what can I do to help my child? And I said, listen to their teacher. They know your child best. They spend a lot of time with them, ask them what you can do and then take that advice. And I thought that was a pretty harmless comment. It got a lot of heat just from saying — I would never trust teachers. I was floored by the sort of public response to something like that.

Terra Tarango (07:52): That feeling teachers are out there, whether it’s political indoctrination or whether it’s all sorts of stereotypes or things that are out there. And I just think that teachers have a really hard and important job. And it worries me that we aren’t respecting that in the way we once did.

Vicki Davis (08:08): The respect has to start with us. It has to start with how we work with our colleagues. I will never let students speak ill of another colleague in front of me. I’m just not going to do that. Not that teachers are perfect — they’re still going to make mistakes.

But we do have to respect this profession. We’ve got 3% of the population training 100% of tomorrow’s workforce. I think that’s pretty doggone important.

Terra Tarango (08:30): It’s really important. I’ve often used that example to say teachers have the most important job in the world. And it’s because they are training every other job that is to come.

Vicki Davis (08:38): And science is more important than ever. Something in computer science we talk about all the time is that computational thinking is something that you can put into every single age and grade level. I teach my kindergarten teachers, when you teach your classroom procedures, number them. First you do this, then you do this. And that computational thinking and that inquiry-based learning is something that is not only applicable to the regular hands-on science we’re used to, but also computer science. We need to have that computational thinking and that inquiry-based learning that we’ve been talking about today.

So as we finish up, let’s kind of talk to teachers who want to start. They want to start on their journey of, hey, I want to have more inquiry. I want to bring science in, but maybe blend it in with reading. Where do they start?

Terra Tarango (09:25): So I think there’s a few places to start. Again, it is about starting small. Don’t set yourself up for failure. Don’t set yourself up to be disappointed. Just try a little thing. So some small things you can start — something like a pledge form, something like that. So you bring a little bit of authenticity. A step up from that might be if the kids are working on some kind of culminating project to have them pitch it to industry experts. And these experts are happy to come into your classroom.

We have had no trouble finding those. Whether they’re coming up with some kind of solution and they’re going to pitch it like a pitch tank sort of thing, that’s a little place to start. Another is flipping the order of the instruction. Have them do before they learn to mimic the way scientists are doing things a little bit more. Or you can also flip the way you plan. So instead of thinking, I have to teach X, how can I make it interesting? Start with, what will my kids find really interesting to do?

And then how can I connect X to it? I always like to take on this challenge — if we have this interesting project, the kids are going to — for example, one we do is a project called Moments to Remember, where the kids are going to befriend a senior citizen and they end up writing a biography of their life. And it’s a really powerful project. But then, so you start with that and then say, well, how can I teach math?

Terra Tarango (10:36): Well, the person’s life is a timeline. Let’s use anything I’m going to do on a timeline I could use on that person’s timeline. Or science — how can we weave that in? Well, younger kids, we could bring them a plant and let’s talk about what a plant needs to survive. Or a little bit older, we can pair them up with a senior citizen who has the same birth month. They can learn the patterns of the night sky — the sky was the same, even though they’re born 60 years apart if it’s the same month. So thinking about what’s going to be interesting and then how do I connect content?

Vicki Davis (11:03): So Terra, could you tell us, where can people go to see these resources?

Terra Tarango (11:08): The best way is to go to vaieducation.org. You can explore all sorts of freebies there and check out different types that we have. Everything from full-on science lessons and full-on project-based learning units to these small 15-minutes-at-a-time games and activities that can be a lot of fun for building that classroom culture.

Vicki Davis (11:26): What a conversation with Terra Tarango, the Chief Education Officer at the Van Andel Institute for Education. She’s been sharing all these ideas of inquiry-rich and hands-on learning that really helps to spring science into all the different subjects for K through eight. While a lot of these even apply with older students, getting them excited about science — kids make their minds up at a pretty young age if they’re going to love science or not, don’t they, Terra?

Terra Tarango (11:54): They do. But that doesn’t stop us from trying later on. I think if they’ve had exposure to that sense of discovery, that usually starts early and lasts a lifetime. But if they haven’t, that’s really cool to be that person that brings it to them kind of later in life — that middle school kid who finally sees like, that’s what that feels like to discover something. That’s really powerful as well.

Vicki Davis (12:12): Science is just such an important topic, like all of these STEM and STEAM topics. Terra, thanks for coming on the show.

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