Wishing

Well, I have already posted some of my “wishing” in terms of future sewing projects that I would like to complete. For future inquiry projects, I do have some things that I would change the next time around. The main issue that I had with this project was insecurity in my topic. Because of that insecurity, I got stuck in the wondering phase. Sometimes having an online class is challenging for me. I think in a live classroom environment I would have been more likely to ask questions to the professor and my fellow students. I ended up using my husband as a sounding board eventually, and that actually helped get me past my mental block. I also wish that I had continued blogging along the way. Once I got stuck, I stopped blogging. In reality, I was moving through the phases of the inquiry process the whole time. I had to recreate the process that I went through, which was challenging.

I think that this stage of the inquiry process is very important. If students don’t take the time to reflect, they could make the same mistakes again (assuming the process didn’t go perfectly the first time). I think that this stage can be an uncomfortable one for some people. Self-evaluation is sometime challenging for me. Having this step built into the process that students are learning ensures that self-evaluation becomes a natural part of their thought process. I find it interesting that not all of the models we have studied include this stage. I love the first table in appendix B of the Blue Book that compares many of the models in a chart. I refer to that chart all of the time now. Based upon the information on the chart, the I-Search, Research Cycle and REACTS models don’t include this step (Callison 585). If I was asked to teach any of those models, I would add this step to the process myself.

Works cited:

Callison, Daniel and Preddy, Leslie. The Blue Book on Information Age Inquiry, Instruction and Literacy. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2006.