Waving!

Here it is! I finally finished it today! Now what do I do with it? What do I do with the information I obtained? First, the quilt will go to my son. Secondly, the finished product is more than the finished product. It is the steps traveled and the knowledge gained. Yes, I learned to make a quilt. I also learned there is a lot more to quilting that I don't know. I didn't design the pattern. I didn't cut out the shapes, but I did sew them together and completed the project. I now know more about what is involved in piecing a quilt and found that I enjoy it. What does this do for my classroom? By forcing myself to think about the inquiry process, it will change my classroom. I was at a disadvantage with my source because it was all distance learning. (I need to remember that with my IUPUI students who are taking an online course with me). I needed the visual aids to complete the quilt. Because of this experience, I began making videos with camtasia software and posting the videos for my students to see what the program should look like and how it should run when it is completed. There is more, but I will save that for Wishing, the subject of tomorrow's blog. For now, I am celebrating!

A part of Waving should include explaining your process. I have included a Concept Map of the process and will go into greater detail tomorrow about the map. When you study the map, you can see that nothing was ever linear. I would get started and then would have to go back for more information whether it was from my friend, from a quilting book or magazine, a library friend or the quilting lady. "It is important to recognize that the process of scientific inquiry is not linear. When students learn about the process, they often try to simplify it into a series of steps to follow. Teachers, too, often teach inquiry as the “scientific method” with a lock-step linear process. Why do students and teachers try to make inquiry a step-by-step process? They are misled by the formal, orderly way scientific research is published. Students and teachers may believe that scientists went about answering their questions in the same orderly fashion. In fact, that is not how science is done. Aspects of scientific inquiry interact in complex ways. New evidence, new observations, and new lines of questioning can lead scientists in a circuitous route, the end of which, they hope, is a good explanation for a set of phenomena. For example, questions lead to the design of an investigation, and the evidence gathered through the investigation may lead to more questions"(Doing Science). http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih6/inquiry/guide/info_process-c.htm

Concept Map