Using Student Interests to Create

Personal Digital Inquiry allows students and teachers to be involved in collaboration to discuss, analyze, and reflect so that knowledge is gained and is evident in student creations (Coiro et al., 2019). As an experienced primary teacher, I believe Personal Digital Inquiry (PDI) is best approached as first a guided inquiry so that learners become familiar with the process. One of the authors of From Curiosity to Deep Learning Personal Digital Inquiry in Grades K-5 share the initial joy of her first graders as she explained late in the year that they would use what they learned from prior inquiry projects to pick their own topic and engage in an inquiry of personal interest. She described the students’ excitement by reflecting on nods, big smiles, and quiet cheers (Coiro et al., 2019). As I imagine the scene in that first-grade classroom, I can almost hear the buzz of voices as they begin to discuss and share their topic ideas with one another. Students are naturally curious about many things and when teachers use those interests to create learning opportunities engagement and excitement happen naturally as well for the students. What an excellent way to reach even our struggling students! The inclusion of web reading into multi-modality brings images, sounds, websites, videos, digital books, and read-alouds and each with a specific way to make meaning in which young students learn and communicate (Mills, 2011). Not only will those students be excited to seek information about an area of personal interest, but they will also be allowed to use the affordances of digital text and tools to help guide the growth of knowledge in a specific topic as they interact with the text to improve reading and comprehension skills. Reading scores have shown improvement when reading and writing connections are made through activities that use digital and multi-modal text and include student creation to demonstrate understanding (Oakley et al., 2018). As the world around us has learned to use technology for gaining information, educators need to embrace these practices and equip our students with the ability to use the web for reading and writing (Dobler et al., 2015). 

This brochure shares other ideas of high interest for primary literacy learners. I feel these ideas will encourage high engagement for all levels of students.

Mrs. Hager's 2nd Grade Classroom Creations

Students watched a webcam at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and read or listened to information from a couple of websites and then used SeeSaw to show what they learned.

Grade Level Reader

Below Level Reader

What's Next in my Classroom 

I too have learned so much this semester. I have included technology and more of what that truly includes in my classroom. In the past, I have completed an inquiry process in a co-teaching experience with my school librarian, but this year I am excited to engage my students in this process within our own classroom. This class will be better adapted to web reading and digital tools used to demonstrate learning (which will help tremendously), and I will be better at supporting my students in this process.  

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