Inquiry Lesson Plan

After a less than ideal direct lesson plan, my group and I came together and worked strenuously to create what we felt was an exciting and thought provoking inquiry lesson plan for the ages. 

We started our lesson by reviewing the classroom rules. We then jumped into the problem the students would have to solve using the inquiry method. Our problem was the labels on the packages at Stewart Airport got switched around, and we needed the students to figure out what country each bag was from using a sheet that told them the main exports from each country. 

Before we jumped in to the inquiry method, we reviewed some of the key terms we taught during the Direct lesson plan. These key terms included import, export, goods, and services. Once we felt the students were comfortable we were ready to move on. 

We demonstrated how to solve the problem using an example we created from another country. The 4 groups were given a list of countries with their main exports listed. Each group was given a separate bags representing countries. These bags contained clues pertaining to what country it represented. The students had to create a hypothesis of what country they thought they had based on the first clue they pulled out of the bag. They then had to pull all the other clues out of the bag and talk with their group members about what country they thought they had. They had to write what they found, and form a conclusion of what country they had and why. After all the groups were finished they presented their report sheets to the class. I was happy to see that everyone's hypothesis was correct. For an independent practice to do at home, the students had to write a letter to the president of the airport explaining what country they thought they had and why. 

I felt our inquiry lesson plan went a lot better than the direct instruction lesson plan. Our classroom management skills definitely improved, while they still were not all the way where they needed to be. I felt the students enjoyed the lesson, and seemed to be engaged with the process.

    

Here is the link to the PowerPoint presentation we used

Here is the link to the formal lesson plan

Here is the link to the demo example of the research sheet