sowing seeds in social media
Although I use social media daily and have done so since the early 2000s, I never thought to research an academic subject using it. While I often get ideas for my own classroom from blogs, posts on Facebook or pins on Pinterest, social media is not something I've ever needed to use for a university level assignment. Social media tends to lead you, the reader, through rabbit holes, over fences and through gardens until you realise you aren't at all where you started. I found that to be the same with me, and I had to let the links lead me to places I may not have been expecting
plowing through Pinterest
I started with Pinterest, as it is often my go-to social platform/search engine when looking for quick ideas or pictures about any subject. I have often found great educational ideas and boards, and today was no exception. My intitial search produced some 'prompts' that put me in the right direction, as well as some boards to start digging into.
I began by clicking on some of the boards and letting them lead me to other links and websites that might be useful.
Listed below are the items I found most interesting and helpful in relation to my topic.
Learning stations guide, relating specifically to teaching using inquiry learning in the English classroom
Socratic method for English discussions, linked to a blog called The Daring English Teacher
Idea for inquiry writing on solving a world issue
Blog on teaching social justice in the classroom through inquiry learning
This board on an inquiry learning unit using WWII novels like Maus and The Book Thief
This board which is all about inquiry learning in the English classroom
A lot of what I found was not helpful at all, or only somewhat related to what I wanted to find. I found that much of the information available was labeled 'inquiry learning' but then had no aspects of inquiry at all. Also, I found there is MUCH more available on science and social studies/history/geography than for English teaching.
farming Facebook
Facebook is my primary social media tool, though I have never used it for finding information like I have Pinterest. Although I use Facebook daily, I felt slightly lost when searching the site! A strange and terrible feeling to have about a platform I consider a friend!
I started by typing "inquiry learning" into the search bar, and was pleased to see that there were lots of results! Next I added the the word "English" and found some groups worth looking at.
Typing in "inquiry learning" gave me LOTS of results--I could scroll forever and find lots of theoretical posts on why inquiry learning is great or posts on schools doing it. What was disappointing, was that there was very little on teaching English using an inquiry-based method. Listed below are the items I found most relating to English teaching and inquiry learning.
Language and Literacy Through Inquiry Learning public group
Article explaining what inquiry learning is, and how to use it (not specific to English, but still helpful)
This website giving insight into teaching Shakespeare...some inquiry learning ideas embedded
Using inquiry in the writing process
A link to The Reading and Writing Project, a website with units and ideas for teaching English
Most of the links on the so-called "inquiry learning" pages about English were not actually inquiry-based ideas, but just good teaching tools for teaching English. Although I found some good resources, even the links above are not stand-out inquiry ideas relating specifically to my question.
gathering in Google+
Google+ turned out to be even less helpful than I thought it would... typing "inquiry learning english" or any other variable like "reading," "writing" "teaching," inquiry-based," proved only to give me general inquiry learning collections or communities. Using the term "inquiry learning" actually gave me results related to teaching using inquiry-based learning like the items below.
I began looking through these collections and communities, and found...
A link to this video on a project-based learning activity in the English classroom
A website describing project-based learning using To Kill a Mockingbird
A lesson using guided inquiry and project-based learning for The Great Gatsby
After quite a while, I was able to find a significant amount of links and discussion on inquiry learning in general, but barely anything on applying it in the English classroom.
tilling up YouTube
I use YouTube all the time in a professional, teaching context, but very rarely in an academic, university-level context. Because YouTube is owned by Google, it has some of the same features that make Google so easy to use, such as drop down search bar suggestions, a count of results.
My first search, "inquiry-based learning" came up with 33,400 results. Wow! However, fine-tuning that to my question, once again, proved difficult. Here's what I found:
A video describing an experience with inquiry learning in the classroom and another school using project-based learning where the English teacher describes her struggle in use it in her classroom.
A quirky professor's video on his understanding of using inquiry in an English unit and another video taken in a classroom where the teacher is using the technique of 'shared inquiry' based on the Junior Great Books curriculum, which seems very teacher-directed.
An English teacher's video on creating good inquiry questions and an interesting link describing how to conduct quescussions and my favourite find, a trailer for an episode of Teaching Channel's Inquiry-based Teaching (full episode on Teaching Channel website)
final thoughts
I found that searching social media was overall a positive experience in my research, but also came with challenges. The platforms I chose were diverse and popular, yet I expected to find more information in each of the places I searched. I will continue to use social media for casual searching and non-academic purposes, but I don't think I will use them again for more formalised searches such as this.
Pros
There was ease when searching these sites as I already know then well.
Each platform was enjoyable to use and nice to look at with lots of pictures of videos to interact with.
I was led on a journey through each platform, rather than continually 'refining' my search through Boolean Operators.
The information was diverse and came from around the English-speaking world.
Cons
My subject was very specific, so it was difficult to find quality information in each social platform.
I spent much more time 'digging' for information on the social media sites than on any other platform, and came up with worse results.
The platforms are made so that they are fun and interesting to use, so it was easy to get distracted from my inquiry question (especially on YouTube).
The information is not always credible on social media.
Created by author
Created by author
Created by author
Created by author
Created by author
Created by author