What comprises effective teaching in HSIE?
High Expectations - motivate and engage all their students in learning.
Using a range of pedagogies - Use techniques that best serve the learning needs of the students.
Monitoring progress and providing feedback - closely monitor each student's achievements and give regular feedback.
Encouraging student responsibility - teach in a way the encourages students to take greater responsibility for their own learning.
Having mastery of their teaching content - have thorough knowledge of their subject content and skills.
Providing a safe environment - physically and emotionally safe and orderly environment so students can achieve their potential.
Building positive relationships - build positive relationships with their students and take particular interest in their overall development and progress.
What I aim to achieve using inquiry learning in HSIE, and what strategies would I use?
Inquiry learning underpins much of the learning in HSIE and is used as the basis for knowledge building and understanding. In teaching my students the content within the syllabus I aim to use a range of strategies in engaging the learning and interest in the topics.
The inquiry skills I aim to build include:
Information processing skills -
This includes the skills of ascertaining what information is required, accessing and sourcing relevant information using a variety of medias, skills in note taking and categorising information.
Tabu's inductive thinking (1971) "pioneered an approach that encouraged inductive thinking. It involved listing, grouping and labelling data; looking for connections between the data; and then putting the various parts of the data together." (Reynold, R., 2009 pp. 45)
Critical and creative thinking skills -
These are the skills associated with ascertaining the quality of material presented and the use of new ideas in a meaningful ways. Creative thinking is measured in terms of originality, fluency and flexibility.
Communicating skills -
This includes brainstorming, graphic organisers, group work, questioning and social skills.
Reflective and metacognitive skills -
Reflective skills includes the ability to consider how well learning is progressing. Metacognitive skills establish a strategy to solve a problem and self-monitor one's process. It is about having knowledge about our own thinking processes.
Teaching Strategies:
KWL;
A KWL chart is an old tool that allows a student to tap prior knowledge and reflect on new knowledge. It is a simple tool and can be very powerful if on-going and used with regularity. This strategy sorts out what children KNOW about the topic, what they WANT to learn and sums up the LEARNING that took place in the process. This teaching strategy ensures that children develop their thinking and skills sequentially.
Time and Change
CCS2.2 Explains changes in the community and family life and evaluates the effects of these on different individuals, groups and environments.
What do you know about the natural and built features in your community?
What do you want to know about these features?
After researching these features What have you learned?
What do you know about the natural and built features in your community?
What do you want to know about these features?
After researching these features What have you learned?
Generative Questions;
Ask open-ended questions such as Who? What? Where? When? How? and Why? to encourage inquiry and will in turn aim to spark new ideas or areas for further investigation. If for instance we were to explore:
Significant Events and People
CCS1.1 Communicates the importance of past and present people, days and events in their life, in the lives of family and community members and in other communities.
Unit: Colonisation of the British people to Australia.
Open-ended question: “Which country/ies did your relatives come from?”
Unit: Colonisation of the British people to Australia.
Open-ended question: “Which country/ies did your relatives come from?”
Site Studies;
Allowing the children to connect with their learning and their surroundings, site studies or excursions will aim to encourage participation and engagement.
Patterns of Place and Location
ENS3.5 Demonstrates an understanding of the interconnectedness between Australia and global environments and how individuals and groups can act in an ecologically responsible manner.
Unit: Environment/Rainforests
Unit: Environment/Rainforests
Site Study: Excursion to a local National Bushland.
ICT's;
Technology is an important resource used in the classroom for sourcing, collecting and absorbing information. It is a key element in the teaching of HSIE and is widely used in order to effectively proceed through the inquiry process.
Technology is an important resource used in the classroom for sourcing, collecting and absorbing information. It is a key element in the teaching of HSIE and is widely used in order to effectively proceed through the inquiry process.
“Recent developments in information technology provide unequalled opportunities for student learning in Human Society and Its Environment. Information technology enables students to learn in new and diverse ways, including through interaction with people in distant places. The world wide web, for example, enables students to engage in dialogue with students in communities that are similar or different from their own, to monitor events that are of current interest or that are directly related to learning experiences in the classroom, to access commentary on local, national and global events, and to share the design of projects with students in other places and participate in group action.” (NSW Board of Studies, 1998 pp. 6)
Cultural Diversity
CUS1.4 Describes the cultural, linguistic and religious practices of their family, their community and other communities.
Indicator: communicates an understanding of how people in another country express their culture by mentioning some customs, practices, symbols and traditions.
Have student’s research on the internet a country of choice and get them to collect information about the countries customs, practices, symbols and traditions to present to the class.
Indicator: communicates an understanding of how people in another country express their culture by mentioning some customs, practices, symbols and traditions.
Have student’s research on the internet a country of choice and get them to collect information about the countries customs, practices, symbols and traditions to present to the class.
