Some final thoughts . . .

Here are some final thoughts and additional information as I bring my postings to a close. Thanks for reading.

A standards connection ----

The standards connection that I chose is from the Illinois State Board of Education “Illinois Learning Standards for English Language Arts --- Standard 5.B.3a for Middle/Junior High School.” This standard states that students will “choose and analyze information sources for individual, academic and functional purposes.”

I believe that this standard would be covered and successfully achieved if students were able to demonstrate that they found, analyzed (for quality) and selected a variety of information sources related to the topic of “children, teens and health.” And explained how they found their sources, why they selected the top sources which they did and how they chose to use this information and link it to the next step in the information inquiry process.

The goal of this Illinois Learning Standard 5.B.3a relates to the section in “Curriculum Connections Through The Library” by Barbara Stripling which states, “Inquiry is not a collection of process skills and strategies; it is a relationship between thinking skills and content.” Standard 5.B.3a speaks to this idea of connectivity between thinking strategies and a student’s knowledge base.

Additional information about my personal inquiry ----

In terms of how my experiences with personal inquiry are LIKE those of a child or young adult I would say they are similar in the following ways:

1. Like a child or young adult, I don’t always know where to find the best, most up-to-date resources on a subject and I often have to “search around” a great deal to find them.
2. I don’t always find the “searching” process great fun --- but I do enjoy the “finding” (good stuff) process.
3. I think that narrowing down all the information that is found when searching is time consuming and usually takes more time that I expect. But I do know that it is time well spend (and I appreciate this when I am finished doing it.)

In terms of how my experiences with personal inquiry are NOT LIKE those of a child or young adult I would say they are dissimilar in the following ways:

1. I believe I have a strong idea/rubric for what is considered a quality source/resource.
2. I know that spending to much time on one part of the whole process can sometimes bog down the entire project/assignment and hinder it from getting done in a timely manner.
3. I don’t wait until the last minute like I sometimes used to when I was younger. It is a little easier being an adult because I have more control of my time. In high school I played a lot of sports and would often get home late in the evening after practices and games and not always have the time I needed to spend on my assignments. I did have great fun in high school though!

Something I forgot to mention ----

For one week I participated in the American Sleep Association Forum which can be found at:
http://www.sleepassociation.org/phpbb/viewforum
I found it useful and interesting to read what professionals in the area of “sleep medicine” had to say about sleep and health.

A detailed final reflection ----

I thought the entire personal inquiry project was of great benefit because actually “doing” all of the steps made all the difference. I have a deeper, clearer understanding now of how each of the steps work together and why each step is very important to the whole process. I also know that each step does not need to take an equal amount of time (it can, but it does not have to) and I am now fine with the eight step process of the 8Ws. I can name them and explain them if you asked me about them on the street. I think that I have used many of these steps in the past as I did personal inquiry projects but that I often would skip steps because I did not remember to do them or because I undervalued the step or because I did not have any great tools to help me achieve greater success in a particular step. Overall, I had a great time working on this project and I learned a tremendous amount too.

Specific to the topic of my inquiry ----

I learned a bunch of stuff about “Health and Sleep." And boy am I glad I took the time to research, read and learn about this topic and related information. From what I have learned --- my new topic/presentation in the future maybe “Do Less --- Live More.” The focus being that there are a handful of key things that we each must get done on a daily, weekly and monthly basis and that after these things get accomplished --- training oneself to refrain from filling one’s life with lots and lots of extra unnecessary activities --- is a truly healthy approach to life. But that is a topic for another day . . .

I mentioned this at the beginning of my personal inquiry --- but I think it is worth noting again --- because it is information that came up in almost all of my research sources. It is that people (children, young adults and adults) who consistently get eight quality hours of sleep or more have a greatly/hugely reduced chance of being overweight and/or being obese. And that it is better to sleep eight hours or more than to sleep less and exercise for an hour or two daily. Whoa, I find this awesome information. This is just one “small” bit of the information that I gained from my research --- but it is information that researchers say people often overlook. And yet it is information that can greatly improve people’s lives (of all ages), save individuals and nations tremendous sums of money and overall make the quality of life for the globe --- that much better.

For that information alone, I am glad that I did this personal inquiry project and --- I will no longer feel guilty because I sleep eight hours a night --- and am often kidded by others for doing so! Eight hour sleepers (of all ages) unite for a healthier world. Hooray!


Signing Off ----- Suzanne Ross