During the first year of Project Inquiry, approximately ten MAIS
schools requested and received visits by project personnel to
their school sites. Five schools received visits during the
second year. School leaders, directors, principals,
and/or teacher leaders identified needs and communicated them to
Dr. Mechling or other visiting consultants including Dr. Vickie
Harry, Dr. Bruce Smith, or Ken C. Mechling. Those needs included reorganizing the school’s K-6
science curriculum, identifying appropriate inquiry activities
by grade, matching standards to curriculum and actual practices,
making presentations of inquiry activities to small and large
groups of teachers, conferring with school leaders, making
suggestions for science improvements, meeting with parent groups
to convey the importance of inquiry teaching and learning, and
many more.
Once the needs were identified, materials and resources were
gathered and travel arrangements were made. Most school site
visits were of two or three days duration. Each began before
school started in the morning and continued, in most instances,
until long after the children had departed for home for the day.
Additional meetings with school administrators and teacher
leaders often continued through the evening.
The site visits were very well-received. MAIS participants were
seeking science improvements and willing to contribute to the
visits/meetings/programs with enthusiasm. All judged the visits
to be extremely helpful, but realistically recognized that
fixing their science problems was their challenge and that
achieving improvements takes time and sustained effort.
Communications with those schools continues at MAIS Conferences
and by e-mail.
Following are several sample photographs of teachers and parents
in action during two site visits. The first series shows a visit
by Dr. Vickie Harry to the International Schools of Trieste and
Udine, where she did Inquiry Workshops for Teachers. The second
series is from a visit to the International School of Egypt in
Cairo where she helped lower school parents understand inquiry
and the importance of hands-on activities. |
In this photo, Dr. Harry (on the right) makes and demonstrates a
bubble pipe encouraging teachers to investigate bubbles, their
properties and behavior. |
Next, teachers predict how many bubbles can be made on a table
top. The result is always many more than predicted and observed. |
More table top bubbles. Teachers discuss the physical properties
of bubbles and possible investigations they can do with their
classes. They also identify the science process skills used in
their investigations. |
Next, in two AIMS activities called "Are You a Square?" and
"Equals", teachers observe, predict, measure and record body
parts. |
|
School Site Visits - Page 2 -> |
|
