The Willows Voice Magazine - Summer 2011

the

WILLOWSVOICE | 16 years of student voices |

inquiry The Art of Asking Meaningful Questions Generating Creative ideas

Where do I start?

The Power of Curiosity

Inquiry-Based Learning

Discovery

Encouraging Every Student

www.thewillows.org

SUMMER 2011 | inquiry

The Willows the art of asking

table of contents 1

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Message from Lisa Rosenstein Head of School The Art of Asking

Writing About the BIG Questions Poetry at The Willows

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Intriguing Insects Building a Better Bug Unit

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The Power of Curiosity Meaningful Math Labs

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Evenings of Inquiry Family Science, Math and Arts Nights

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Making the Classroom a Home for Inquiry Professional Development at The Willows

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Inquiry and Athletics Engaging Every Student

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Alumni Spotlight

“

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.

The important thing is not to stop questioning.”

—Albert Einstein

inquiry

The Willows

MESSAGE FROM LISA ROSENSTEIN, HEAD OF SCHOOL

the art of asking

I Lisa Rosenstein Head of School The Willows Community School

nquiry—the art of asking meaningful questions—is central to

At The Willows, we believe that understanding the art of asking good questions is fundamental to students becoming critical thinkers, creative problem solvers, and curious learners.

The spirit of inquiry permeates everything we do at The Willows. You will find teachers helping students develop “the art of asking” from Developmental Kindergarten, where students are asking “What’s the difference between a superhero and a community helper?” to eighth grade, where students ask “What would have happened if Lincoln hadn’t been assassinated?”

Visit our classrooms, and you’ll often see a “K-W-L” chart on one of the walls. At the beginning of each unit, students fill out the “K” column with information they already know about the topic and share what they wonder in the “W” column; the “L” column is where students reflect on what they have learned when the unit is complete.

Capitalizing on students’ innate curiosity, the KWL chart helps teachers make the units more purpose-driven. Students learn within the context of finding answers to questions they care about.

The Willows’ research process—the “I-Search”—also highlights the importance of asking meaningful questions. Whether it’s a first grader researching an insect or a seventh grader investigating an African culture, students focus on formulating good questions even before research begins. The result? Students are invested in the process and better able to synthesize and understand the knowledge they learn.

We embrace inquiry on a school-wide level, too, with our annual school-wide themes including past topics such as “Balance,” “Choices,” and this year’s theme, “Courage.” Teachers present classroom units through the filter of the school-wide theme and develop guiding questions to help students understand the material from a unique perspective.

What will you discover in this issue of The Willows Voice? Great question! You will see how inquiry is at the heart of everything we do at The Willows, from offering yoga as an athletics option in middle school to providing professional development that turns teachers into learners.

At its best, an inquiry-based program offers students invaluable benefits: the ability to ask “why” and “how,” the skill to seek out the answers, and the joy of learning as an active, lifelong journey. all learning.

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Writing About the BIG Questions:

Poetry at The Willows My mind is a pencil ready to write memories.

My heart is the moon pumping up and down.

My soul is a wave of wind blowing.

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- Jeremy, grade 2

Poetry is the ultimate exercise in inquiry.

Writers express themselves by asking (and trying to answer) the “big” questions: Who am I? How do I see the world? What’s my place in it?

Poetry plays an important role in The Willows’ language arts curriculum with the school’s longtime poet-in-residence, Deb Studebaker, guiding the students since 2007, when she started working with students and teachers in the Lower School.

Deb’s program, “Poetry in Motion,” integrates movement activities and helps kids channel their energy and think creatively and critically. During the six-week program, students practice brainstorming, writing, and revising their original poetry.

Deb’s program dovetails well with The Willows’ inquiry-based approach. “The big question when you write is, ‘where do you start?’” she says. “I help students follow their own interests and write about what is most

meaningful to them. The physical exercises we do during warm-up help them focus and attend, creating a mindset so the new ideas can come in.”

Over the years, the program has expanded, and this year, Deb worked with students in Developmental Kindergarten through sixth grade, with plans to include the seventh and eighth grades in the future.

“One of the greatest things about working at The Willows is the longstanding relationship with the students,” says Deb. “We’re able to build on what we’ve done together in

previous years—I think that’s one thing that allows the depth of their work.”

Deb’s teaching has also inspired some cross-disciplinary inquiries. This fall, students from DK to eighth grade participated in an integrated unit on Dia de los Muertos, exploring the Mexican holiday through art, poetry, and performance. Deb collaborated closely with art teacher Susannah Funnell to create a program that supported student inquiry and creativity.

In art classes, students created projects to honor loved ones who had died, including collages, cut-paper portraits, and wire and clay sculptures. In the fifth grade, Deb guided students in writing poems about their ancestors. The unit culminated in an all-school assembly led by the eighth grade, where fifth graders read their poetry and students from other grades reflected on their creative process.

What do students get out of this approach to writing? Strategies for focusing energy and generating creative ideas, practice with writing and revising, and experience with sharing work and creative feedback—all essential skills for any kind of writing, regardless of the assignment or genre.

Most importantly, students have yet another opportunity to see where their own curiosity and inquiry takes them—to a better understanding of themselves and the world around them.

Writing is an act of discovery,” says Deb, “that shows us who we are.”

I remembe mind in a r my curiosity whirl of to find yotrying asking que u, with no a stions nswers.

- Ellie, gra de 5

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The Willows

To read more about writing at The Willows and Poetry Night visit The Willows online @thewillows.org/our-program/our-voice-and-focus/index.aspx

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Intriguing Insects:

Building a Better

How is a Queen ant chosen?... Could we live without ants?... How many babies can one insect

Unit

Willows I is crawling with insects…in a good way! This year, the wall outside the first grade classroom was home to an incredible 3-D installation—a student-created cross-section of an anthill made of painted boxes and recycled egg cartons, and populated by ants, grasshoppers, crickets, and fireflies. The project was a new addition to the first grade’s longstanding insect unit, which is a great example of how Willows teachers use the inquiry-based model to help students construct their own knowledge.

A research project has always been a key component of the insect unit—and this year, the teachers focused on students generating their own research questions as part of the process. “We wanted this project to be meaningful and matched to each student’s skills,’ explains first grade teacher Stephanie Tanner. “Each child came up with five basic questions he or she wanted to answer about a specific insect. These questions helped guide the students as they read picture books and simple readers.”

“The kids were engaged at a deeper level because they cared about finding the answers to their questions,” Stephanie Tanner, 1st grade teacher

To create the mural, students used what they had learned during the research process to build large-scale versions of their insects. The hands-on art brought their learning to life, adding a new dimension to their comprehension, while the collaborative aspect of the project emphasized the important role every insect plays as part of the ecosystem.

Perhaps best of all, the insect mural achieved the most important goal of any good research project: to spark new questions for the students, and new paths of inquiry to explore.

“ Sometimes questions are more important than answers.”

Nancy Willard, poet

have?... How many jobs does it take to make a community work?...

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The Willows the art of asking

The Power of Curiosity

Meaningful Math Labs

The skills that students build in this program include logical thinking, sequencing, and problem

solving, not to mention the invaluable life skills that go with any hands-on, creative, collaborative project: open-ended thinking, compromise, managing frustration, and perseverance.

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But the magic ingredient with all these projects is the students’ own curiosity and drive.

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seventh grade girl is glued to a computer screen. She watches, intent, as figures move in and out of her line of vision. The girl taps on her keyboard, makes a few minor adjustments, hits “enter.” An enormous shimmering blob fills the screen: success!

The student is not playing a computer game—she’s participating in one of this year’s middle school Math Labs, and she’s just created a complex animation that identifies and illustrates cell structures and their functions. The programming language she’s using is called Scratch, and it was developed by MIT to enable children and adults to create interactive stories, math projects, games, music, art and science simulations The possibilities are endless.

Scratch has been the centerpiece of this year’s math labs, which middle students participate in for 12 weeks each year. The labs are the result of collaboration between the middle school math and technology teachers, seeking a new way to make the math curriculum come alive, beyond the boundaries of textbooks and pen-and-pencil computation. The goal: to harness students’ curiosity, and to engage them by challenging them to create animations based on their own interests.

Great project—but what on earth does it have to with math?

Middle School Director Doug Klier explains that students creating animations

in Scratch, are actually dealing with the computer screen as a coordinate plane with an (x, y) axis. “What looks like a fun computer animation project is actually building essential math skills,” says Doug, “such as working with coordinate planes, algebraic thinking, and logical problem solving.”

In addition to Scratch, students also work with WeDo, a LEGO product that includes blocks, simple motors and sensors. Students use programming blocks in Scratch to activate the motors and build working robots.

The middle school math labs round out The Willows’ inquiry-based programming curriculum from Developmental Kindergarten through eighth grade. At every grade level, students now have opportunities to build and program simple machines, beginning in DK, where children work with Bee-bots, programmable floor robots that perform simple tasks.

First and second graders learn to program using MicroWorlds Jr.. Once they reach third grade, they learn how to program with Scratch.

The skills that students build in this program include logical thinking, sequencing, and problem solving, not to mention the invaluable life skills that go with any handson, creative, collaborative project: open-ended thinking, compromise, managing frustration, and perseverance.

But the magic ingredient is the students’ own curiosity and drive. “The students are challenged and engaged,” Doug says. “As they construct their own knowledge, they get instant positive feedback for work that demonstrates strong critical thinking and problem solving skills.”

And sometimes, there are even more benefits. In the case of the seventh grader who created the cell structure animations, her project was so successful that a number of her classmates adopted it as a study tool for their upcoming cell biology test in science. “Her work had an immediate impact on her school life and the lives of her classmates,” Doug said. “It’s a great example of how you can apply your math skills in a meaningful way.”

inquiry

The Willows

The Willows the art of asking

Family Evenings of Inquiry:

Science, Math

Arts Nights

math science

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These evenings are great for every age! The middle school students take on leadership roles and teach mini-classes for the younger students and parents. Everyone gets involved.”

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—Doug Klier, Middle School Director

inquiry

The Willows

At The Willows, inquiry isn’t limited to the classrooms (or the students)—it’s central to who we are as a community. Family Science, Math and Arts Nights—hands-on, participatory family events for all ages—offer opportunities for all members of our community to question, consider and learn together.

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www.thewillows.org

-Lisa Rosenstein, Head of School

“ T he art of asking meaningful questions is central to all learning.”

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