Teaching strategies for having students use "Big Data" as a source for inquiry and meta analysis.

1. Inquiry Learning Using “Big
Data”
Strategies for student investigation
and research.
Thomas Meagher, PhD
STEM Coordinator
Owatonna Public Schools
January 14th, 2015

2. What is Inquiry-Based
Learning?
 Instructional approaches to learning based on
scenarios or problems that are investigated from
student generated questions and often assisted
by a teacher or facilitator.
 Students will identify and research issues and/or
questions, usually in teams to develop their
knowledge or solutions.
 Effective small group inquiry should be rooted in
equitable teams of three people.
 Teaching through inquiry focuses on student
learning through collecting data to answer
measurable questions.
 The era of “Big Data” has arrived, our goal is to
help students figure out how to find, analyze and
interpret the data that already available for

3. Review of different types of inquiry
research:
 Confirmation inquiry:
◦ Team research support concepts studied in
class, very structured.
 Structured inquiry:
◦ Teams follow procedures to investigate
specific teacher presented problems or
questions.
 Guided inquiry:
◦ Teachers provide guidelines that focus
team questions and research into specific
concepts or content areas.
 Open inquiry:
◦ Students generate their own questions and
teachers provide opportunities and
materials for students to investigate

4. What is “Big Data” and how can
we use it?
 Recent and historical data sets are
available online and area searchable.
 Data is collected on virtually
everything such as experimental data,
survey data, opinion data,
demographic data, etc.
 Meta-analysis, examining multiple
sources of data and interpreting the
patterns or relationships among the
data sets.
 Let’s find some data together and see

5. Some helpful online sites for
data analysis.
 Word/text analysis
◦ Wordle
◦ Wordcounter
◦ Tapor
 Data analysis
◦ Plotly
◦ Chartgo (Create charts & graphs)
◦ Picktochart for Informatics (Creating
informational charts, diagrams & graphs)

6. What does Inquiry learning look
like with “Big Data”?

7. Walking students through the
process.
 Present information to be learned and demonstrate how
this can be linked to other knowledge. Motivate students
interest in the subject matter. Help students build a
Growth Mindset.
 Encourage concrete (proximate) questions: Who, What,
Where, When, How. Refrain from WHY questions.
These are difficult to support with data and usually
outside the an appropriate time for class.
 Students develop hypotheses based on their own
knowledge
 Guide students to develop research methods or
experiments to can collect measureable data.
 Take time to organize data results and collaborate on
interpreting the results.
 Publish their study, through papers, posters,
presentations, webpages, etc. Allow students to be the
experts on their research and teach the class.
 Hold the other students responsible for learning from their

8. How does inquiry fit into different
subject areas? Now we practice
researching and analyzing “Big Data”
 Art
 Language arts
 Math
 Music
 Phy Ed
 Reading
 Science
 Social Studies
 What have we missed?

9. How to shift lessons to
Inquiry? Previously, “canned” curriculum would
have:
◦ “The purpose of this lab is…” or “The objective
of this lesson is…” or “The goal…”
 Change these to questions or ask students
to change these to questions.
 Look at the lessons or units coming up and
explore how you can shift to be more open
ended, student directed and collaborative.
 Ask yourself how can I have students using
higher order thinking and evaluating
information instead of simply memorizing,
word searching, matching or filling in the
blank.
 Provide experience first followed by
language acquisition and end with

10. Where do I go with inquiry in my
classes?
 Examine this week and begin small with a
single lesson shifted to simple inquiry.
 Planning next unit to include inquiry in
several lessons or activities.
 Plan one research or group project that
students can investigate and present.
 Provide experiences that can lead students to
research new ideas and concepts.
 Allow students to explore and generate
questions that focus the upcoming lessons,
within the guidelines you have set.
 Allow your students to be active and focused
on learning, take to pressure off yourself to
be in “control”.