FOSIL in Primary School

[Darryl Toerien Keymaster]

I have created this Topic – 17 March 2021 – to facilitate discussion about using FOSIL in a primary school context (Reception/ Pre-Kindergarten – Year 6/ Grade 5).

[Kay Participant]

Can I ask how students, particularly in primary schools, relate to the key terms used in the FOSIL cycle? I’ve been looking at various IBL models, and many seem to use language which is more accessible to primary/lower secondary age pupils.

[Darryl Toerien Keymaster]

Hello, Kay.

Just to check, do you mean the stages in the cycle – Connect, Wonder, Investigate, Construct, Express, Reflect – or something more detailed?

The Empire State Information Fluency Continuum (ESIFC), which FOSIL is based on, is a model and continuum of skills that stretches from PK (Reception) to Grade 12 (Year 13), and has been in use in New York State – more than 3.2 million children in 4,236 schools – since 2012 (or 2009 in New York City – the ESIFC is also in use in at least British Columbia and Rhode Island).

We have experienced no problems using FOSIL with our Year 6 students, and I can’t imagine why this would not be the case lower down, although the challenge would be developing age-appropriate graphic organisers to support the development of the relevant inquiry skills – something that we would be very interested in helping with.

In addition to the graphic organisers that we have developed (Resources), see also the ESIFC Assessments by Grade and/ or Standard, which is where I first started.

Darryl

[Kay Participant]

Hello Darryl, thanks for your response. Yes, I did mean the language used for the stages in the FOSIL cycle. I work in a school with pupils ages 3 – 18 years, and have been looking at adopting a whole school framework for information literacy in order to  bring a coherent approach to our teaching. I’ll have a closer look at your graphic organisers and reflect on how we might use these. Thank you.

 

[Darryl Toerien Keymaster]

Hello, Kay.

I’ve been thinking further about this.

I would be anxious about changing the names of the stages because Barbara Stripling put much thought into them (see here and especially here), and, having spent some considerable time looking at other models, I think they accurately describe each stage in the inquiry process. However, the expanded descriptions of each stage (see Figure 1 below), which I formulated to help me/ us understand what was basically happening in each stage, could be adapted for younger students. Having said that, at what point it is developmentally appropriate to actually name the stages with these words would be up to you – an earlier version of the FOSIL Cycle used Screen Beans to illustrate the description of each of the stages (see Figure 2 below), and images could conceivably serve as the ‘names’ of the stages for a while, but you would still need to explain what they meant. Also, the use of colour in each of the stages is deliberate and has served a very useful instructional role in this regard with younger and older students (although, admittedly, colour does not work equally for all students).

This has reminded me of the following Topic – Primary FOSIL Display – which touches on what we are talking about here, and I will flag this with Mary-Rose. I will also flag this with Barbara on Sunday.

Very interested to follow developments further.

Darryl

Figure 1: FOSIL Cycle Stages and Descriptions

 

Figure 2: Archived FOSIL Cycle (Screen Beans)

[Darryl Toerien Keymaster]

In addition to our graphic organisers (Resources) and those of the ESIFC (Assessments by Grade and/ or Standard), you might also want to look at the British Columbia Teacher-Librarians’ Association (BCTLA) and the School Librarians Section of the  Rhode Island Library Association, both of which have adopted/ adapted Barbara Stripling’s model (see below).

Interestingly, BCTLA combined Connect and Wonder in their model, which is called Points of Inquiry (see Figure 1 below). Given the time and thought that went into the development of Points of Inquiry, I would be very interested to know more about why they decided to do this, because Connect and Wonder are still clearly distinct. It might be as simple as Points of Inquiry being a clever idea/ name that did not work well graphically with a 6-pointed star. I will see if I can find out more.

Of its development they write in The Points of Inquiry: Inquiry-based Learning for Classroom and School Libraries (2011, p. 15), which is well worth reading:

The BCTLA K-12 Information Literacy Task Force moved, over a period of more than three years, to deeper understanding of the importance of learners being able to think critically about information, about sources of information, and about constructing and answering their own questions. The goal posts had shifted well beyond the search for a right model for research for the BC curriculum to the capacity for drawing new knowledge from an inquiry-based approach to information, reading, and 21st Century learning.

…

The model no longer puts a focus on information literacy skills. Rather it embeds these skills under broader inquiry-based cognitive abilities and within curriculum to empower and position young British Columbians to become strategic and independent lifelong learners.

There are resources for Elementary School, Middle/Junior School and Secondary School, which, like FOSIL and the ESIFC, are free to download.

Figure 1: Points of Inquiry (BCTLA, 2011)

The Rhode Island School Library Curriculum Guide (see Figures 2 and 3 below) more closely resembles the ESIFC, with Assessments by Grade and/ or Standard freely downloadable.

Figure 2: Rhode Island School Library Curriculum Guide | About This Project (SLRI, 2019)

Figure 3: Rhode Island School Library Curriculum Guide | Introduction (SLRI, 2019)

I have been in touch with Mary-Rose about her Primary FOSIL Display, to which she replied, “Funnily enough, I have been thinking about this a lot this week. We have got this far (see Figure 4 below), and it’s now ready for the dual coding/explanation.” We shall look forward to hearing more.

Figure 4: Primary FOSIL Display (Hartland International School Libraries)

[Sally LeM Participant]

Hi Darryl

Thanks so much for responding so quickly to my query re FOSIL for the lower primary year gropus below yr 6. I think that perhaps Kay above and I as primary school librarians are thinking along the same lines!

I agree with you that even for lower years the FOSIL headings could stay. After all in year 1 they are used to words such as ‘phonetic’,  ‘grapheme’, ‘trigraph’, ‘reciprocity’, ‘reflective’ ‘resilience’ and ‘resourceful’ as part of the 4Rs, so Connect, Wonder, etc are well within their grasp.

But as you already have pointed out, the wording of each explanation at the learning cycle points per year group, would need to reflect their ability to understand what they are being asked to do. It might be possible to use the same wording for KS1, LKS2 yr 5 and then Fosil yr 6, but I would consult with teaching colleagues around that.

I think it is important to keep as close to the FOSIL set up and graphics as possible, so as to ensure uniformity as children move up the school.

I actually attempted a whole school approach to inquiry learning for my school when I undertook the SLA Libraries Learning Programme for their librarians conversion course, which started with what you would expect from yr 6 inquiry learners then worked down the years simplifying each one. But what with one thing and another I didn’t get nearly far enough in its implementation across the whole school.

The main obstacles I think are:

that the primary school curriculum is so packed that any inquiry learning is incorporated into, for example, a 30 min topic and therefore there is very little time to complete the whole inquiry cycle. Checking for understanding therefore is tricky when undoubtedly primary children need much more support for inquiry learning than secondary school children, who are expected to and are able to learn independenently in that process.  However, just having the basic cycle inquiry points that continue throughout out as children move from yr 1 to 6 would be invaluable. The sooner they are familiar and learn the cycle the better.

And I agree the graphics are important but not sure if it would be better to have different graphics for each year group or keep to key stages, or keep graphic changes to a mimimum.

Thanks for pointing me to this forum where it’s great to read about the discussion on the inquiry process for younger children.

[Barbara Stripling Participant]

I am very interested in this conversation about inquiry at the elementary level.  I do think it’s important to help students, even at the primary level, understand the underlying process.  I would, of course, teach it through an appropriate real-life example, like the process of choosing a pet.  I agree that students can handle the names of the phases when they actually understand what it means to Connect or Construct.  The way that inquiry is implemented in elementary school, especially the primary grades, is by necessity quite different from the upper grades where the librarian has more time with the students and many more opportunities to work with teachers on designing full inquiry experiences.

I have thought of a couple of ways that I would approach the challenge of implementing inquiry in the elementary grades.  First, I would decide the priority skills that I wanted to teach for each grade in order to focus and limit the number of skills I planned to teach.  That is why the ESIFC has explicitly highlighted priority skills.  In consultation with your teachers, you can decide what inquiry skills are most important for the students at your school.  Priority skills will certainly include thinking skills, but also probably include social and emotional competencies, like being able to identify personal interests and feelings.  Inquiry is propelled when students are motivated by their own experiences and personal connections.

These skills can be taught separately from a full inquiry experience.  I think a powerful way to teach them to younger students is through picture books and stories.  If we want students to be able to tell the difference between fact and opinion, for example, we might read a story with both and talk through the criteria to tell the difference as we identify both facts and opinions in the story.  I would be explicit with the students that they are learning how to be inquirers even while we are reading stories together.  I would use graphic organizers to give students a chance to practice differentiating between fact and opinion (and to give me a chance to assess their success at learning the skill).

When we do have a chance to guide students through an entire inquiry experience, we can expect students to use the skills they have already learned (with support as needed) and scaffold the skills we have not yet taught (like providing the best sources for students to use, rather than expecting them to select their own resources for this project).

I feel comfortable at this cumulative approach to inquiry because I would have developed a continuum of priority skills with the teachers at my school.  We would all know what we need to teach for students to develop as inquirers and we would have the comfort of knowing that the important skills will build over time.

I am very interested in your further thoughts about implementing inquiry at the elementary level.

[Darryl Toerien Keymaster]

Thank you, Barbara.

Having now started as Head of Inquiry-Based Learning at Blanchelande College in Guernsey, which is a PK-12 school, I have an exciting opportunity to collaborate with colleagues in Infants (Reception to Year 2 / PK-1) on how upcoming work might be approached through FOSIL.

While I know that FOSIL – as a instructional model of the inquiry process and framework of inquiry skills – is sound, and now have more than 10 years of experience in designing and supporting FOSIL-based inquiries, this is my first opportunity to do so at the very outset of the lifelong information-to-knowledge journey.

I asked for the topics, as well as what the classroom teachers thought might serve as a starting point for developing essential questions for those topics. I will return to essential questions later, but McTighe & Wiggins (2013) write that essential questions engage students “in uncovering the depth and richness of a topic that might otherwise be obscured by simply covering it” (p. 2). This insight is important, because the inquiry process is personalised and energised by questions that result from engagement with an essential question.

In the meantime, I extracted the priority FOSIL skills for Reception to Year 2, and included Year 3 (Grade 2) to have the transition to Juniors in mind.

Figure 1: FOSIL Priority Skills for PK-2 (click on the image to enlarge or here to download the image as a PNG)

Having begun work on the Year 12 (Grade 11) Extended Project Qualification (see this post), in which citing and referencing is an essential skill, what immediately stood out to me was that a concern with academic integrity is already present in Reception and manifests itself in student work in Year 2.

My colleagues came back with the following:

• Reception (aged 4-5 / PK)
  • Topic: Marvellous Me
  • Question(s): Are we all the same? In what ways are we similar? In what ways do we differ from one another?

• Year 1 (aged 5-6 / K)
  • Topic: Where do I live?
  • Question(s): Is Guernsey an interesting place to live and visit?

• Year 2 (aged 6-7 / Grade 1)
  • Topic: Castles
  • Question(s):  Why did they build castles and what was life like inside a castle?

Setting aside subject area content for the time being, and resources, it becomes clear very quickly how individual priority skills combine to give each inquiry a different emphasis, while those skills are developed systematically and progressively over the course of 3 years.

I will post my preparation later.

References

McTighe, J., & Wiggins, G. (2013). Essential questions : opening doors to student understandings. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

[Darryl Toerien Keymaster]

Having spent time thinking and feeling my way into these topics and questions, I discussed them with Barbara (her post above is worth (re)reading).

These are my thoughts.

The essential question expresses a sense of wonder and puzzlement about the topic that gives rise to a process of inquiry, or finding out about the topic, which is learning about the topic. This is inquiry-based learning, and it does not always take place though a full inquiry that involves all 6 stages in the process. However, students will not develop in their ability to learn through inquiry if they never experience a full inquiry, which will depend on a number of things, including topic, time, and/ or resources. Either way, students need to be aware of the stages in the process, as well as which stage they are working in.

Reception (aged 4-5 / PK)

• Topic: Marvellous Me
• Question(s): Are we all the same? In what ways are we similar? In what ways do we differ from one another?

In response to this, the following priority skill for Reception stands out:

• Construct: With help, sorts and categorizes “like” and “different” objects.

This concept of similarity and difference is developed further in relation to self-identity elsewhere in the ESIFC, where, for example, identifying personal strengths and preferences (see PK.4 below, and used to connect) can serve as a starting point for wondering who has similar strengths and preferences, and who has different strengths and preferences. This might lead to wondering when it could be an advantage to be grouped together with people with similar strengths (such as a tug-of-war) or preferences (like a club), and when this could be a disadvantage, such as a relay race or general knowledge quiz. An investigation into some of these situations/ activities might be quite practical, and could lead to the construction of some interesting conclusions, which could then be expressed in a number of ways that celebrate commonality and diversity. Reflection could focus on how obvious differences can prevent us from discovering what we might have more deeply in common. An essential question that begins to emerge out of this for me is, “Wouldn’t it be great if everyone was just like me?”

Year 1 (aged 5-6 / K)

• Topic: Where do I live?
• Question(s): Is Guernsey an interesting place to live and visit?

This strikes me as an instance in which it would be helpful at the outset to have a clear idea of what the outcome of Express will in term of audience and product, as this will have some bearing on the specific shape that the inquiry takes.

It is interesting to me how this question builds on the concept of similarity and difference explored in Reception (see above) – some people are likely to share my preferences/ interests, but not all, which makes the topic of this inquiry a good example of situation in which it would an advantage to be in a group that is diverse in its interests. Consequently, identifying which outstanding feature(s) of Guernsey I would be interested in finding out more about (see K.1 below) – e.g., beaches/ coastline, wildlife, bunkers/ observation towers, etc. – would help to ensure a wide range of interests. This leads naturally to establishing facts (Investigate) about my specific feature (see  K.5 below), which are then presented (Express) as compelling reasons for the inclusion of that feature (see K.8 below), bearing in mind audience and product. Reflection could include feedback on the product from a sample of the target audience.

Year 2 (aged 6-7 / Grade 1)

• Topic: Castles
• Question(s):  Why did they build castles and what was life like inside a castle?

According to the Year 2 curriculum map, work on castles (History) followed work on scientists and inventors (Science). This led me to wonder whether it might be possible to approach the topic of castles from the perspective of innovators and innovations in castle design and construction. Background reading suggests that the history of castles does not include any stand-out innovators or breakthrough innovations, which a discussion with the Head of History confirmed. This, however, is itself telling, and may make for an interesting starting point for this inquiry, which is why history is silent about this.

Depending on the scope of the topic, and time constraints, it seems to me that Guernsey provides a fascinating insight into the development of castles through the ages (see, for example, Castles on the Guernsey Museums & Galleries website), which is partly due to its strategic signific and its small size. This might broaden out to consider the fortification of Guernsey through time – the most obvious example of this being stark evidence of the German occupation of Guernsey during World War II.

Connect is an interesting window into what students already know, or think they know (see 1.1 below), and the graphic organiser for Wonder encourages student questioning, either individually (see 1.4 below) or as a group (see 1.5 below). The topic and questions are well suited to establishing facts and forming opinions based on those facts (Investigate – see 1.8 below), and then using those facts to answer specific questions resulting from the essential question (Investigate – see 1.10 below).

This represents my thinking ahead of my initial meeting with the teachers of Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. Clearly, there is more work to be done following the meeting, specifically to ensure that the inquiries cover the topic in terms of requisite subject area content while also uncovering the depth and richness of a topic, and to establish what age-appropriate resources and graphic organisers will best support the inquiries.

I will post again at some point following my meeting.

[MaryRoseG Participant]

Good Morning.  I have been reading this thread with interest!  Firstly, I must report that my enormous display which Darryl posted above is no longer; over the summer there were construction works in the school and the entire thing was destroyed.  I can hardly think about it because otherwise I will cry… but we will move on to bigger and better things!

I have been working on some Reading Grids for our half termly topics and wanted to try and link this with FOSIL.  I have completed the Year 1 – Flying High grid using books we have in the library. (I should add that not all of these are necessarily Year 1 books – this list is for the teachers to help guide their planning and it is not expected that the pupils will access them all).  The final page of the attached document contains the beginnings of the FOSIL planning.  I know that it is rather woolly…  the end point for this unit is for the children to design and make their own kite to fly on the beach and I am trying to unravel in my head how they will get there.

I worry that trying to work within the NC objectives and the enormous time constraints means that the essence of inquiry is lost and becomes rather tokenistic, however if the stages are made explicit and the pupils understand the process of what they are doing, I hope that we will be off to a good start.

I would be so grateful for any thoughts or feedback – and apologise for this hasty post – if I don’t do it now, I never will!

Attachments:

1. Reading-Grid-Y1-Flying-High.pdf

[Darryl Toerien Keymaster]

Hello, Mary-Rose.

What a shame about your display – I was so interested in following its development, and I will cry with you.

Thank you for sharing this.

Interestingly, given the topic, questions(s) and priority skills for Year 1, I’d be inclined to focus on Investigate – from what we know about things that fly, what kinds of questions will we need to investigate to help us try to build something that flies?

The priority skills that stand out, then, are:

• Wonder: With help, begins to develop questions to be answered in shared research
• Investigate: Identifies facts about a topic, idea, or problem
• Express: Uses emergent writing and drawing to express facts and simple answers to questions (this does not prevent them from applying what they have learned to making a kite – again, this depends on subject area content, time available, etc. – and the practical outcome could be more or less explicit depending on the context)

Combined with your ideas so far, this pretty much works through the entire process.

Darryl

[MaryRoseG Participant]

Thank you so much, Darryl.  This is really helpful.  I will have another go at it and will update this thread!

[J Jones Participant]

Hi Mary-Rose,

thank you so much for sharing this resource- it is really helpful to see an example of how you are presenting the FOSIL model in practice. I also love the way that you have shared a booklist too so that you’re linking the texts directly. So often we provide a topic box to a year group and I wonder how much the books are used. This way it’s clear to all stakeholders that the books are central to the exploration of the topic and by putting the learning objectives from the FOSIL standards you are helping everyone with the metacognitive element in the topic in a structured way. Does this sheet go home to parents?

I’m going to have to present my preliminary research into the FOSIL model from Nursery upwards in a few weeks time and this very solid example will be incredibly helpful.

Thanks again

Jenny

[MaryRoseG Participant]

Good Morning Jenny

I am very behind on this at the moment, and am now starting to create the Reading Grids for next term and realise how much I have to do!  At the moment, those grids don’t go to parents because they were intended as a resources to inspire and infrom teachers at the planning stages of their topic.  I do think that they could go home, but perhaps with slightly different text suggestions.   It sounds like you are much further ahead with this than I am and I would be really interested to see your research when you’ve finished it.

Mary-Rose

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