Hi Liz,

I’m so sorry I missed this one over the summer. We moved schools (and countries) to Blanchelande College on Guernsey which was quite an upheaval and took a lot of time and energy! It may be a bit late for you now, but in the next week or two I will post some more specific detail about what we did in each of our seminars in case that is helpful to you or to someone else in this situation. Broadley though you can see the content of each session on our LibGuide (check the Seminar 1 tab, for example. You can access the tab for each seminar either from the dropdown menu on the Seminars and Workshops tab at the top of that page, or by using the ‘Next’ button at the bottom of that page). You won’t be able to access the videos (which are on SharePoint) but you should be able to see the slides (Which are on Slide Share). I’m currently struggling with my internet connection and can’t see all the slides in that presentation on the LibGuide site for some reason, so will try to post some more stable links for you at some point as well. Be aware that at points where I mentioned the LibGuide in the presentation I usually then dropped out of PowerPoint and did a ‘live’ tour of whichever section of the guide I was discussing.

In answer to your question about FOSIL, the majority of our IB students were a new intake into Year 12 so I did not assume any prior knowledge of the cycle from lower down. The whole of Year 12 (IB and A-Level) had a short introduction to FOSIL during their induction days, but this was quite brief. While there wasn’t time to dwell too much on the cycle in isolation during the EE seminars, we always started with an overview and made it clear when we were stepping between stages (a simple transition slide in a presentation is often enough there). There was also a tab on the LibGuide giving more detail about the inquiry process for those who wanted to explore it. I think the most important feature of the guide and accompanying resources was the FOSIL colour coding as it helped to locate students in the cycle whether they were new to it or not. Whether or not you have an online space like a LibGuide for EE students, consistent use of colour coding and mention of the cycle in your presentations and resources can help locate them, and also makes FOSIL an integral part of the process rather than something that is just mentioned at the beginning and then forgotten. Students then learn to internalise the cycle by working through it rather than being told about it. Another important aspect is that FOSIL is both important for the students, but also for you in your planning and understanding of the inquiry process. The end goal is clearly for them to be able to internalise, understand and use the inquiry process rather than to ‘name the stages in the FOSIL cycle’.

I’m not sure if that rambling is helpful, but I am short on time this morning and wanted to make sure I had made a (very belated) start on answering your question. I will return to it as soon as I can….