Project-based Learning, Inquiry Maps, and the Internet David J. Rosen
David J. Rosen was the Director of the Adult Literacy Resource Institute in Boston from 1986 to 2003. He has been active in adult literacy and technology work for many years. He was a founding member of the Boston area Literacy Telecommunications Collaborative and of the Massachusetts Adult Literacy and Technology Team and is a consultant on adult education and technology. The article below was written in the mid-1990's.
PART I
A written conversation on project-based learning has been taking place recently on an internet electronic list sponsored by the Massachusetts Adult Literacy and Technology Team (MALTT). I have constructed this two-part article by taking excerpts from that conversation, mine and others, and re-organizing them but leaving the authors' original words -- including mine -- largely unedited. Nearly a dozen adult literacy practitioners have participated in the conversation from across Massachusetts. Susan Gaer, an adult ESOL teacher and technology coordinator from the Visalia Adult School in central California was also invited to join the discussion. Susan is an experienced user of the Internet and project- based learning in her classes. Silja Kallenbach, the Coordinator of the New England Literacy Resource Center, was also a participant. I am grateful for Susan's and Silja's contributions, which are quoted extensively in this article.
What is Project-based Learning?
Susan Gaer: "To me project based learning is where outcomes for students are based upon a project that learners feel that they can identify with."
Silja Kallenbach: "Project-based instruction develops both academic and higher order thinking skills through inquiry-based learning projects on specific topics ideally based on questions articulated by students. The projects are often conducted by groups of students together in which case they promote cooperative learning and team work. Project-based instruction is associated with constructivist, student-directed learning in which the teacher functions more as a guide and facilitator than the sole source of information and direction."
How does this differ from skills-based, content-based and co-operative learning?
Susan Gaer: "To me content, skill learning, cooperative learning are all part of project based learning. But rather than learning about the presidents (content) students might develop a guide to help other students get their citizenship (project). While developing this guide, they will learn about the presidents, they will develop their reading and writing skill and they will work in groups."
What is the Rationale for integrated, project-based instruction?
Silja Kallenbach: "Brain research on the way people learn underscores the importance of integrated or interdisciplinary teaching: (1) The brain searches for common patterns and connections; (2) Every experience actually contains within it the seeds of many, and possibly all disciplines.* Integrated, project-based instruction can make learning more meaningful and interesting to students especially when the themes are rich, provocative and meaningful to students, and when students are encouraged to formulate their own questions and direct the learning process. Genuine learning involves interaction with the environment in such a way that what we experience becomes integrated into our system of meanings. It is constructivist. The Cognitive Learning Theory states that
What Does Project-based Learning Look Like?
1) Silja Kallenbach: "...A unit on heart disease could include reading informational materials as well as stories by heart disease patients; interviewing people whose lives have been touched by heart disease and writing their stories; science lessons and demonstrations on anatomy focusing on the circulatory system and viewing a videotape of open-heart surgery; reading, comparing and writing a critical analysis of different studies on causes of heart disease; learning to calculate percentages and read graphs using information about the incidence of heart disease in different populations; learning about healthy nutrition from publications and nutritionists; cooking a low-fat, low-cholesterol meal; conducting a class debate about vegetarianism; designing a healthy heart public awareness campaign; making heart shapes with different materials; learning about the history of the heart shape, how it came to symbolize romantic love in Western cultures and what organs other non-western cultures associate with emotions; reading romantic literature and discussing the concept of love."
2) Susan Gaer: "One of the projects I have done is an internet cookbook. Most of my students come from countries where there are no recipes. Knowing that this cuisine would be lost to future generations, I persuaded my students to record them. Since where there are no recipes there are also no standards for measuring, it soon became apparent to me that we would have to cook these recipes together to get them written down. Thus was born the cookbook project. Now a yearly event at our site. I posted the project on the internet and asked if others would be interested. Soon the class had recipes flowing in from all over the world. We have a desktop publishing class at our school and they said that they would publish it for us. So now we sell the cookbooks and make money to buy things for the school. The students sell the cookbook and help decide on what will be purchased. I am excited by this type of learning because it involves the students completely in the learning experience. In fact , they seem to get so caught up in the learning that they forget they are learning. Because they are so involved they seem to retain the knowledge longer. One student was able to recount a recipe from 2 years prior because she learned to use chopsticks that day. She didn't forget the recipe or the students who helped her. I have never had a student remember the day they learned how to add fractions or the day they learned the past tense. But this student learned how to use both those things in the cookbook project and never forgot. That is why I am excited by this kind of learning."
3) Susan Gaer: "For the last year, I have helped out an adult ed economics teacher develop a small business exploration project with her class. It was just a pilot and as such was only given 4 weeks of time. During the pilot the students got into groups, chose a small business idea that they might be interested in starting, researched it and presented their findings to our local chamber of commerce. The structure had its problems but it was bascially successful. The students were out of the text, interacting with the community and learning something about starting a small business. So now it is to be a semester course. I will co- teach this class with the instructor. The first section will be computer literacy. Next there will be some goal exploration. Then we will let students decide what businesses to research. We used to make them work in groups but this time we decided that if they have a business that no one else is interested in then they can do it solo. We hope that this will stimulate their interest more. They will have to research the business (not sure how to do this but I am sure we can do it on the Internet.) They will have to research the consumer (again not sure how we will do this.) They will have to find out how much financing they will need and try to find places to get it. If there is time, they will write up their business plan and try to actually get some financing. Last they will present their findings to the chamber."
4) Heide Spruck Wrigley (from a message posted to the NLA electronic list last year from El Paso, Texas, and re-posted on the MALTT list by David Rosen): "Susan Gaer talked about the project based curriculum she is using with her ESL students and asks what others are doing - I am working with a JOBS project in Texas where teachers are developing projects with women enrolled in a GED program (GED preparation is integrated into the curriculum rather than consisting mostly of workbook practice.) Here are some of the projects the groups are discussing
5) David Rosen: "There are different kinds of project-based learning. Susan Gaer has given one, the on-line cookbook project, which I would say is an example of product project-based learning, where, from the start, one of the students' intentions was to create and disseminate a useful product. Another example of project-based learning is what I would call inquiry project-based learning. An inquiry project begins with a question or problem, ideally one which, in the normal course of things, has emerged from a student, and which other students feel is interesting, important to them, and worth taking the time to get answers or solutions. It ends not in a product, but in some answers, some points of view, and more questions. These, of course can be documented and published in print, or electronically, on line. For example, one day a student brings her pay stub to class to get help interpreting it. She tells her teacher she's willing to have it used as an example if her name is blocked out. The teacher puts it on the overhead projector. The pay stub has deductions taken out for health benefits, social security, and something else which isn't clear to anyone. It refers to "net" and "gross" pay. It generates a lot of questions:
1. "What is the difference between 'net' and 'gross' pay?"
2. "Why is so much taken out for health benefits?" (Someone adds, "and the employer has to pay for health benefits, too.")
3. "What is FICA?" (Then, when this is explained, someone asks, " Will this be enough money for retirement?")
4. Someone asks, apparently veering off into a new subject, "How do they decide how much to pay you?"
5. Someone else, adds, "Yeah, and who decides?"
6. And someone else, "And how can I get them to pay me more?" Everyone laughs at that one, but the teacher takes these questions seriously.
The next day she brings the same questions back to the class, in writing. They read them over, discuss them again; and other, related questions emerge. She says they can get the answers to these questions, but first they have to decide which ones seem to be most important to the class. The class decides on:
1. "Who decides how much to pay me, how do they decide, and how can I get paid more?" and
2. "Exactly what are they taking out of my paycheck and what does it go for?"
Everyone in the class is working, or has recently worked, and everyone is very interested in these questions.Together they discuss how to get answers, how to research these questions themselves. Since the questions are very particular to each student's situation, they decide that each person has to investigate his or her own case. But they also decide to share the results of their information to see if there are any patterns in what they find out. Together they discuss who might have the answers to question 1: shop steward/union rep, supervisor, personnel department, co-workers are all possibilities. Together they generate a good list of questions for each person to start from, a kind of interview format. Then, over a two-week period, they carry out their interviews. In class, the interview format questions are written on an overhead (in a high tech class, on a computer with an LCD overhead display) and the students each tell what answers they receive. The results are printed, photocopied and given to each student to think about, to see if they can see patterns. In the next class they discuss patterns: almost everyone has an annual "performance review" at work done by a supervisor or manager. Many students found out about "cost of living" increases. Some students found out they had more benefits than they knew about, and that the company considered benefits an important part of the whole pay package (salary or wages and benefits). One student learned that although the amount taken out for FICA differed from student to student the percentage was always the same. (The teacher noted this for next week's math lesson on percentages.) What one student said he has found out, another student or the teacher is not sure is correct. The teacher puts a question marks next to it, indicating that it needs further research, verification. The teacher (or a small group of students where possible) types up the questions, sub-questions, and the answers students found, puts them in hypertext language (html) and adds this text to the literacy program's inquiry maps on "Employability" on the program's web page on the World Wide Web. The web page already has such questions (and some answers) relating to: how to know what jobs are out there, how to know what education/training is required for a job, how to find a job, how to interview for a job, how to change jobs. Some of the questions and answers branch to other questions, and other answers on other inquiry maps, on other web pages. These inquiry maps are usually incomplete, with some questions left for others to pursue. There are enough questions and answers to make them interesting, but many are left unanswered to stimulate further questions, further research. Sometimes a question leads to one answer. In some cases a question leads not to an answer, but to a debate -- a transcript of a forum where students, from across the world, have wrestled with the question and come up with different answers, different points of view. One inquiry map leads to others. The questions above lead to a question about health benefits. This leads to a question about health conditions at work. This leads to a question about indoor air quality and how it is measured and so on."
PART II
(The second part of this article is taken from the author's postings in July, 1995 on the MALTT Electronic list, sponsored by the Massachusetts Adult Literacy and Technology Team.)
How Can Learning Projects Continue to Generate New Learning for Each New Set of Learners?
Project-based learning may be learner-centered, collaborative, and inquiry-oriented; the students may create a learning product and learn a lot from making it; however, the product itself may not be learner-centered, inquiry-oriented and may not enage those who see it in new learning which means something to them. Too often the product is simply a presentation of what was learned. I want to explore how learning experiences can continue to be ongoing, generative learning projects, so that each new group of students is stimulated, challenged, and engaged, and can see ways not only to benefit from what other students learned but to further develop the learning product themselves. Recently I heard an East African musician describe the difference, as he saw it, between Western and African music. In Western (classical) music, he said, there are too many notes. A composer plans a piece for a certain number of musicians and for certain instruments. Because of the density of the notes and because it is planned, there is no room for others to join in. In African music, there are planned rhythms and instruments, but there is always room for other rhythms and instruments, for new layers to be laid on top of the existing layers of rhythm. There is always space for others to join in, to play music, too. I see this as a useful metaphor for generative learning projects. While planned, they must be unfinished works. There must be space left for others' questions, others'points of view, and their departures into new areas of questioning. The learning products must be untrimmed inquiry maps, not tidy units or modules.
What is an Inquiry Map?
An inquiry map is a learning tool. It includes text and may include drawings, illustrations or photographs. A digital inquiry map may also include sound, full-motion video, and Hypertext features such as pronounced words, or windows which can be opened to display definitions of words, or illustrations.
What Does an Inquiry Map look like?
An inquiry map could look like a simple, one-page brochure or pamphlet, a comic book, a three-ring binder, or it could be a more expensive and high-tech interactive videodisc or laserdisc, or a homepage (and connecting pages) on the World Wide Web. An inquiry map could even be a set of questions and information organized like a treasure hunt. Let me give some examples, starting with simple, low- cost, and familiar ones: A well-designed information brochure could be a kind of inquiry map. For example, a health brochure on alcohol use/abuse could begin with a true/false quiz about alcoholism. Then it could pose some common questions. It could answer some of them simply, directly and factually; with others -- those where there are differing points of view -- it could point out some of the different ways one could look at the question. Some questions deliberately could be left unanswered. At the end there could be a short list of other resources: organizations, phone numbers, other pamphlets and books on the subject. A group of students could produce such a brochure. They could deliberately set out to engage the readers, and leave space for them to take it further, deeper, or off into a new, related area of inquiry. A videotape could be part of an inquiry map. It could include a debate about an issue. For example, students could debate whether or not alcoholism is a disease influenced by genetics or an unfortunate strategy to cope with difficult personal problems. Students could present their arguments on the tape, and the debate or discussion could be carried forward by another class which views the videotape first, then has a discussion or debate of its own, which could also be recorded. Each year the National Issues Forums (NIF), for example, prepares written and videotaped materials which focus on a national issue such as racism, abortion, the drug problem, immigration, and others. They present different points of view on the problem to stimulate discussion for study circles. NIF materials could be a starting point for inquiry maps, particularly if participants were encouraged to write their own points of view and add them to the NIF materials for the next group as articles, letters to the editor, transcripts of their discussions, or results of their own , original research. One medium with great potential for inquiry maps is, unfortunately, not yet readily accessible to all adult learners; however, I believe it soon will be available in many homes and learning centers within five years. It is the World Wide Web. In particular, the possibilities of using Hypertext (html) to allow infinite, seemless branching from anywhere within text, and the capacity to add sound, images and even full-motion video, make a rich medium for participatory, generative curriculum development. The web page is the perfect inquiry map, the perfect vehicle for student-centered, participatory ongoing curriculum development, a medium where it should be easy to pick up where one group of students left off and build from there, from one's own set of questions sparked by other students' questions and research. And like African music, there is always room for new players to add their own questions and their own research on the answers.
Who are Inquiry Maps Intended For?
Students and teachers build or add to inquiry maps. Inquiry map users may also be builders at the same time. Inquiry maps can be made for a particular audience or not. For example, an inquiry map could be built for junior high schoolers, adults pursuing English as another language, teachers, plumbers, antique restorers, auto mechanics, or adult learners studying for the GED test in Spanish.
What are the Different Kinds of Inquiry Maps?
Inquiry maps can be: 1) Edited or Unedited An unedited inquiry map might be produced by a group of students for their own use, This might then become a product or the beginning of a product which is edited so that others could use it, too. Editing inquiry maps will be discusssed more later. 2) Inquiry-oriented (built and used by one learner or one group of learners) or Product-oriented (built and used by many successive groups of learners). A product-oriented inquiry map would usually be edited, and fairly complete. It would be intended for use and possibly further building by unknown other learners, and would be distributed. 3) Inexpensive print materials or high-cost, high- tech digital products 4) Finished, or Unfinished A finished inquiry map is one to which nothing further is to be added. It may be finished because the class is done with it and no one wants to make it into a product, or it may be a finished, edited product, used but no longer being built. It is possible to have a widely-used, product- oriented inquiry map which is, however, deliberately never finished.
How are Inquiry Maps Different from.....
Web Pages?
A web page can be designed as an inquiry map, but not all web pages are necessarily inquiry maps.
Brochures or pamphlets?
Usually brochures are not inquiry maps. However, they can be. For example, imagine a one-page health information brochure on stress. It is organized by questions, not topics, such as:
- What is stress?
- What life events increase stress?
- How can I tell if I am overstressed?
- How can I assess my own stress level?
- What can I do to deal with stress?
- Where can I go for more information?
Some questions are raised but deliberately not answered. Where there is controversy it is mentioned, e.g. "Not everyone agrees that stress is negative, but even positive stress can produce physical reactions." It may include -- sometimes begin with -- a brief self-assessment questionnaire to draw the reader into interesting questions and problems. Brochures on alcoholism, for example, sometimes include short self assessment questionnaires on one's behaviors which might or might not indicate an alcohol problem. Sometimes brochures also have some of the other characteristicsof inquiry maps discussed below.
Articles?
Articles are usually not inquiry maps. They are usually presentations of information, often from only one point of view. They try to answer questions, not raise more questions. They are linear, not branching. However, one could write an article which incorporated some of the characteristics of inquiry maps.
A Set of Directions or Instructions?
These are not inquiry maps. While they can be useful, they are directive, do not usually include questions, are linear, step-by-step, and not branching.
Essays
Some essays, particularly those which are driven by questions and which deliberately explore different points of view, may look like inquiry maps, but they usually are not. They are, rather, a reasoned argument from one point of view. Their purpose is to persuade, not to engage in the give and take of inquiry.
What are the characteristics of Inquiry Maps?
1. Inquiry maps are driven by learners' real and important questions or problems;
2. They usually encourage controversy, and looking at a question or problem from different points of view;
3. Beginning with one question or problem, they quickly branch to other questions and/or problems. They are branching, sometimes circular or recursive, never linear. For this reason, videotape, audiotape, film, vinyl records, television or radio broadcasts all of which are linear, not branching, are not good media for a whole inquiry map, although, as in the above example, they could be parts of inquiry maps.
4. Their content -- the response(s) to the questions or problems posed -- is the result of learners' information gathering or research;
5. They may be written in more than one language;
6. In the learners' researched responses to questions there are new questions, new problems, and these are not always answered by the same learner(s) , not always answered at all; and
7. They include information which users regard as useful and practical. In addition, the following are also characteristics of edited, digital inquiry maps:
a. They are organized for the user who may know little or nothing about the subject;
b. They include simple, attractive graphic icons which identify: 1) questions, 2) problems, 3) controversy, and 4) additional resources;
c. Hypertext is used to benefit learners of the language(s) in which the inquiry map is written. Difficult words are pronounced, and windows can opened with definitions and illustrations.
What is an Edited Inquiry Map?
An inquiry map is usually only edited if it is to be used by other learners. It is edited for clarity and accuracy of information, degree of completeness, ease of use, attractiveness, and possibly for reading difficulty. An inquiry map could be edited by one person; but it could also be edited by a group of learners and teacher(s). Different groups of learners/teacher(s) could edit different parts of an inquiry map once the editorial policies were agreed upon.
Where Do We Go From Here?
We need to work with students to
try making Inquiry Maps, and try out other short-term learning projects.
I hope to be working this year with workplace education teachers and adult
literacy teachers working on health topics to build inquiry maps and put
them up on the World Wide Web. 1) If you would like
to see an example of an Inquiry Map that has been recreated using a health
project done by ESOL students in Somerville, MA, click here.
2) If you would like to read about how to make an Inquiry Map, click here.
3) If you are making an inquiry map and would like a thought-provoking
list of questions to help students in judging the information they get,
go to Consider the Source 2 (updated 5/13/00)
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* Caine G. and Nummela Caine, R. 1991. Making Connections: Teaching and the Human Brain. ASCD