I worked with of 4 of my peers to inquire about effectively implementing guided reading during the reading workshop. You can read more about this inquiry under my "inquiry" tab (paper to be posted soon).
Not only did I learn from my inquiry, but I learned so much from the other inquiries as well. I listened to one presentation where the presentor was inquiring about how the design of the rubric affected her students performance in class. She found that by not putting "scoring" or "numbers" on her rubric, and instead labeling it by expectations and standards, her students performed better and were more focused on their performance and thinking rather than their grade. While this was done with a college level course, this same thinking can be applied to an elementary school classroom. Even in kindergarten, although we don't hand out rubrics, the way we communicate our expectations and standards can change a child's thought on their performance. Rather than focusing on if work is the "right or wrong answer," focus on our thinking and how our thinking got us to that conclusion. This relates a lot to what I believe as an educator by practicing applying real-world, life skills-- in life there is no right or wrongs, rather we are presented with situations in which we think through a series of steps to decide our action.
Another inquiry that I listened to from one of peers was about number sense. In her classroom, she noticed her kindgergarten students were struggling with connecting math concepts. Instead of implementing more and more practice on the concept, she took it back a few steps and focused on number sense. By taking 10 minutes of the day to do whole group practice on number sense, students were gaining conceptual knowledge of numbers: what they look like, how they are represented, patterns, and relationships. One strategy she used which helped her students to excel was subitizing practice (being able to recognize how many in a set without counting). This strategy not only helped with number recognition, but also with addition and subtraction.
There are so many presentations that I could write about, but I would be writing all day! I am so proud of all my peers for their hard work and dedication to their inquiries this semester-- you all did wonderful and I loved learning with you!! Looks like you will just have to check out the Third Annual Inquiry Conference for yourself ;)