Inquiry Plans Created by
Participating Program Teachers
Bronx High School for the Visual Arts (BHSVA)
Teresa Bologna, Art Teacher
Teresita Olmo, Science Teacher Jim Nordlinger, ELA Teacher Nancy Rinaldi, Social Studies Teacher Inquiry Question: If as an interdisciplinary team we provide explicit instruction and practice in the development of communication skills, including the use of content specific vocabulary, the ability to provide evidence, and analyze data, will students be able to effectively communicate their acquired content knowledge? Inquiry Summary: We will pursue the goal of clearer and more effective communication by developing student inquiry skills, by explicitly focusing on content specific vocabulary from science, history, art, and literature. Through their inquiry, students will use content specific vocabulary, as well as general functional vocabulary such as analyze, explain, compare and contrast, etc., which will deepen their control of language and their understanding of content. As a result of this intervention, we will assess to determine if students will speak and write with greater clarity. |
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Millennium High School
Katherine Belfay, Science Teacher
Inquiry Question: How does a debate increase students research skills? Inquiry Summary: This project is designed to improve students ability to perform and evaluate their own research and to improve their written and oral communication skills as well as enhancing their understanding of how the digestive system plays a role in homeostasis. |
Lisa DiFilippo, Art Teacher
Inquiry Question: If I encourage students to utilize the knowledge that they have gained about the genre of portrait photography, and provide them with guided instruction on how to use specific equipment to create personally expressive portraits of each other, will they then be able to produce original, visually sophisticated artwork that demonstrates their knowledge of art history and technology, as well as reflects their own personal voices as both sitters and photographers? Inquiry Summary: For the 2012–2013 school year, I am planning to implement two complimentary extensions of this research project: a portraiture unit before watching American Photography and a visual essay project after viewing the documentary. Through their writing, I want my Photography I students to not only understand the technical processes associated with darkroom photography, but also the art historical aspects associated with the genre, rendering them “visually literate” art critics; and eventually, I plan for their personal voices as artists to emerge in a meaningful way. |
Josh Frost, Social Studies Teacher
Inquiry Question: This project will determine if students will become more socially engaged in their communities and active in the political process if they become more connected to issues that their local government confronts on a daily basis. Inquiry Summary: This project will determine if students will become more socially engaged in their communities and active in the political process if they become more connected to issues that their local government confronts on a daily basis. Local government has much more of an impact on our day to day lives than national or international politics. Yet, the majority of high school students haven’t the faintest of idea about how local government ultimately has consequential role in determining the health of their overall quality of life. |
Noah Garfinkel, ELA Teacher Inquiry Question: If I revise my speech unit to emphasize inquiry, will students become more comfortable understanding and putting into practice the necessary rhetorical strategies to deliver a successful policy speech. Inquiry Summary: The central content ideas are framed by two essential questions: 1) How do people attempt to persuade others and 2) How do writers attempt to solve problems through writing? To get students to appreciate how people persuade others, it made sense to introduce the rhetorical triangle to them. The content we chose for this unit represents a small handful of the many high points in the policy speech. The core skills include analyzing speeches for central arguments and annotating speeches for incorporation of rhetorical appeals as well as for tropes (interesting diction) and schemes (interesting syntax) both of which help writers enhance their central arguments in various ways. |
Joyce Kong, Science Teacher Inquiry Question: How will regular student self-reflection and self-assessment affect the development of their skills in critical thinking, analysis and writing in an integrated biology and chemistry classroom? Inquiry Summary: The goal of this Inquiry Project is to help students to (1) become better inquirers about their personal learning habits, (2) develop deeper analyses of experimental data, either from their own experiments or from reading and research, and (3) improve their argumentative writing skills in science. |
Eszter Weisz, Math Teacher Inquiry Question: 1. How do we improve student articulation of mathematical ideas in alternate forms, without using mathematical notation? 2. How can students justify mathematical ideas through writing? 3. How does writing deepen understanding of content? 4. How can we measure understanding through writing? 5. How do we model writing for students? 6. How can we teach our students to be concise but detailed? 7. How do we teach the use of math vocabulary? Inquiry Summary: As a result of this project, students will improve their ability to "Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others " as laid out in the CCS. They will develop the necessary skills to build logical arguments, back them up with evidence and organize their ideas in a clear, concise and logical manner. |
Peekskill High School
David Mueller, Social Studies Teacher
Inquiry Question: If I provide students a variety of ways of communicating the results of their research about if they had a chance to step back in time for a week which decade would they choose as a woman to live, then will students use evidence more effectively in their projects? Inquiry Summary: Student will be offered a variety of ways to present their project. These differentiated ways will include a skit, song, using stop animation which will result in a YouTube video |
Erum Hadi, Science Teacher
Inquiry Question: If students are exposed to content related films and print media (scientific news articles) will they be more likely to ask questions that further aide their understanding of the topic. Inquiry Summary: Students will learn the art of generating questions once a engaging video is presented to them or when they read interesting articles. These questions will become the guiding principle for the lesson for the following two days. Students will research further the answer to these questions. As the teacher, I will bring into the lesson ways to address the questions asked by the students. |
Josephine Williams, Science Teacher
Inquiry Question: If I implement the use of digital story boards and animation as a way for students to express their understanding of science concepts relating to how humans impact the Environment, will students increase their preparedness / readiness scores on constructed response questions in my Living Environment Science classes? Inquiry Summary: This will be an ongoing project activity that the students will start about March / April and end about early May. It is revamping a unit on how humans impact the Environment, providing a project for these students to build ownership as well as completing the tasks preparing scripts through drawings as well as orally and written forms in groups as well as class thereby motivating them, improving their engagement, sense of responsibility, preparedness and scores. |
Melissa Gover, ELA Teacher Inquiry Question: If I try structured literature circles, will the students make more thoughtful connections to the book or gain a deeper understanding of the characters through character study from the book than if read independently? Inquiry Summary: Learning from each other, considering others’ points of views, increasing vocabulary, connecting literature to the world around them, participating in and leading discussions. Students will deeply connect to literature and each other. I would create roles for each member of the group, which would rotate each week, and each role requires a written assignment. The focus on non-fiction, informational texts follows the new Common Core Standards. |
Rich Flacinski, Science Teacher Inquiry Question: If I give the students a project (they are interested in) and facilitate it as student centered, where they research, design and build and in the end test their car in a competition, than they will be motivated to not only learn, but to win . If they make and compete with the cars I expect them to communicate and write and present their data. Inquiry Summary: Students will connect with Science standard 4. The Students will graph and communicate their results written and also a present their findings to the class. Demonstrate their findings on a unit exam on energy. Will coordinate with their English teachers so they may benefit with that subject also. |
Peekskill Middle School
Jonathan Iasillo, Physical Ed Teacher
Inquiry Question: If I introduce a sportsmanship-focused do now activity regularly, will I see an increase in Sportsmanship-like behavior in my 7th grade classes? Inquiry Summary: Based on student behavior (assessing and correcting proper affective behavior which deals with sportsmanship, effective communication, peer feedback). - Based on performance assessment (students commenting on each others’ performances during the skill testing sessions and in game play activities). - Based on student perceptions (answers to questions based on previous sport readings). |
Tom Doughlin, Science Teacher
Inquiry Question: If the students of my eight period class are given a short current video relating to the content topic and they are asked to document a question that they would like answered about the videos material, they would be more interested in having their question answered? Inquiry Summary: There will always be the release of basic content ideas following the student-generated questions. Students will be grouped cooperatively and allowed to select which of the questions from individual group members should be further investigated. Selected broad questions will then be broken into smaller more relevant questions and the group will then be tasked with researching answers. They will in fact be answering their own questions. Questions and answers will be retooled by students with prompts from me. |
Jessica Rizzuti, Math Teacher
Inquiry Question: If I model organization in problem solving, then will my students have better organizational skills which they can apply to problem solving? Inquiry Summary: My students have shown a great deal of difficulty answering extended response questions on New York State Exams as evident on their last years state test. A majority of the points lost on last year’s exam were lost on extended response questions. As evident by their work, students were not taught how to organize and show proper work in an effort to receive full credit for problems. |
Rachele Rice, Special Ed Teacher Natalie Bolden, ELA Teacher Inquiry Question: If students participate in the research project, will they be able to answer the essential unit question of “What contributions were made to American art and culture during the Harlem Renaissance? Inquiry Summary: Watching video clips of Ken Burns’ JAZZ DVD which highlights the Harlem Renaissance and it’s musical traditions. Generating questions about the time period and discussing findings. Researching specific individuals of the time period. Creating a multimedia presentation (non-PowerPoint) about the life of the person researched. |
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Sleepy Hollow High School
Chris Adamo, Science Teacher
Leana Peltier, Science Teacher Jonathan Villanueva, Science Teacher Inquiry Question: If we have the students read current events (related to our content) will they be better able to understand vocabulary from content, read to learn and think beyond the text? Inquiry Summary: Reading comprehension in subject areas is a weakness of our students. Reading passages are incorporated into both the Earth Science and Living Environment Regents exams. Additionally the new common core standards for science incorporate students using primary source documents as text. These strategies will assist in the student’s ability to analyze experiences, interpret data and enhance critical thinking. |
Noah Berger, Science Teacher
Inquiry Question: Students in 9th grade often look for the way around thinking through problems presented in science class. I believe that if I provide my students with an array of evidence for a key concept in Earth Science (i.e. seasons), peers to work with and reasonable supports, they will figure out the reasoning behind this concept on their own. Inquiry Summary: Students will come away from Earth Science with a stronger ability to work independently and with less direction. In addition, I will be looking for increased competency in: prediction (producing a hypothesis), correlating evidence (at least temporally), and mostly synthesis of evidence to form a conclusion. |
Robert Spirelli, Math Teacher
Inquiry Question: If students are able to discover various sine and cosine ratios by collecting data through a lab experiment, then they will have a better understanding as to what sine and cosine ratio’s represent, and would perform better on performance tasks with sine and cosine applications. Inquiry Summary: Students will be introduced to sine and cosine and the unit circle in February. They will explore the use of reference angles, graphs of the trig functions, and work with identities. o During this time the students will be taking quizzes, tests, and a survey. Attendance data will also be recorded. Students will be asked to complete a lab. Following this lab the students will be given a number of performance tasks and will also be asked to complete a survey at the end of the lab. Attendance records during this time will be compared to previous records from February and March. |
Jason Choi, Science Teacher Inquiry Question: If I have my students use a chemistry lab notebook for experiments and activities, then will they do improve in providing explanations and explaining their thought process? Inquiry Summary: By writing in their lab notebooks, students will be required to not only record observations and data, but draw conclusions from the information obtained from the lab. Each lab will be changed to provide some guiding questions to help students draw connections between the concrete evidence (observations and data) and abstract chemistry concepts. |
Kristen Dreher, Art Teacher Inquiry Question: If I have my portfolio students analyze and deconstruct current AP concentrations, will they then be able to use this knowledge of understanding to formulate their own 12 piece art series? Inquiry Summary: I have chosen this focus due to past results within the AP Studio Art Class. Through student perceptions gathered from journal writing, and student/teacher conferences it has become evident that students struggle with formulating themes in art. |
Mary Rosenberg, Art Teacher Inquiry Question: How do I encourage students to tackle conceptual topics, without providing step by step instructions, so that the end results of the body of work end in different interpretations of the same concepts? Inquiry Summary: This inquiry learning will help formulate abstract ideas and determining centralized themes, as expected through the Common Core Standards: English Language Arts High School (9-12th grade). Through digital imaging, students will be collaborating, and determining central ideas, or common themes through their body of digitally manipulated photographs. Students will learn to argue their point of view, as the photographer, and offer analysis and explanation of their intentions, through summative, self-reflective assessments like an “artist’s statement”. |
Elena Pousada, LOTE Teacher Inquiry Question: If I allow my students to discover on their own the basic structures of the imperative mood (the command forms), and ask them to use these forms in authentic ways, will they be able to incorporate them in both the regular and irregular forms on a consistent basis? Inquiry Summary: I will be asking the students to produce from their previous knowledge what they believe to be the command forms. I will put them in groups to determine collectively which of the options they come up with is the correct one. I will ask them to discern the pattern for each of the three conjugations (i.e., the -ar, -er & –ir verb endings). I will challenge them to look for patterns, even with the irregulars. Once the forms are elaborated, I will ask them to use the forms in authentic ways: role plays with each other in which they ask each other to do something, advice columns or simulated conversations in which they advise someone to do something, recipes, a video commercial in which they tell the public to buy their imaginary product, what they need to do that this product will do for them, and what to do to buy their product, and finally a travel brochure enticing tourists to visit their imaginary country. |
John Cincotta, Social Studies Teacher Samantha Horn, Social Studies Teacher Stacy Rosen, Social Studies Teacher Inquiry Question: If we teach students to use inquiry-based strategies to think more like historians, will their ability to think and write analytically improve? Inquiry Summary: Students will identify essential questions for the unit, produce evidence-based arguments in writing to support their characterization of the Mongols as empire-builders or destroyers, peer-sharing, and self-editing of their work. |