Discrepant Events Mindtronics! and Inquiry Alive! (CD-ROM) by William C. Bruce, Jean K. Bruce Home Tree Media Product Details * CD-ROM: 680 pages * Publisher: Home Tree Media (March 2004) * ISBN: 0970480156 Mindtronics! and Inquiry Alive! Back to: Resource Page Discrepant Events take Science and Social Studies to their Highest Level of Meaning These two books offer two different maps to teachers. Inquiry Alive offers a detailed plan of how to turn average lessons into astonishing inquiry lessons through discrepant events. Visualize the Inquiry Alive lessons as maps that lead students on treasure hunts. Each hunt starts with a discrepant event. The hidden prize ends in the ultimate reward: problem-solving skills and accumulated knowledge students can apply. Deeper Topic Understanding Most teachers say that it's the discrepant event lessons in Mindtronics that sway students to reject shallow topic knowledge. As the taste for foods other than candy changes, so changes the taste for introspective learning. Think of learning that comes from the relevancies surrounding an unexplained account brought to light through gathering more details, debate, questioning, clarification, and brainstorming. After a few Mindtronics' lessons, students prefer deeper topic understanding as they learn how to follow the more discerning discrepant event clues. Clues and ambiguity drive the momentum to solve a discrepancy. As students begin to solve a discrepant event, they start with the lowest levels of learning: memory and simple comprehension. As students process the logic steps and the conceivability tactics, in theory building, they go to the highest levels of meaning of any topic: synthesis and evaluation. Yet, discourse on method is never the focus. Mindtronics follows the "practice makes skill" path from Inquiry Alive with demonstrative lessons. Cognitive Dissonance and Agreement The books' examples and exercises help students commit to and welcome learning. The lessons in Mindtronics are designed to help students quickly evolve from low diagnostic thinking efficiency to execute highly specific critical thinking tasks. Using resources, cooperative ideas, and supportive analysis students go from assumptions, to data explanations, to insight, to conclusions. Both the cognitive dissonance and agreement turn the seemingly dull scientific method into exciting, clearly defined ways to apply the inquiry of events and issues found in science and social studies. The judicious yet student-centered methods of learning, in Mindtronics and Inquiry Alive, help teachers and students bring Life to the most arcane of events or issues. YES! Non-reading Students can do Inquiry! Non-reading elementary school students may not know what the word investigate means; yet, they own great analytical skills. All students examine, consider, and probe given discrepant event information. Students also form views and try to discover more about the practical details of each discrepant event. Group Therapy By using the interactive cognitive methods in Mindtronics and Inquiry Alive, students shape and sharpen their organized thought. Students' carry familiar ways to explore information; that knowledge, added to the group teamwork to gather scientific investigation, brings a self-awareness and self-belief much akin to the group therapy given to at-risk children and adults. Signposts to Answers and Increased Choices Although non-reading students may need the teacher to read the discrepant events and fact sheets, the students weigh their own theories and other student theories. Students learn how their questioning muscle can mark signposts to answers. Questioning increases choices. Choices build reliable knowledge, given and found. Then students support the most promising logic offered by applying what they've learned. The Pulse of Theories and Guesses Students learn about the pulse of theories and guesses, about trials-and-errors, the refining of clarifications, and how to synthesize knowledge. They now understand and connect their new and old knowledge. A student's individual reflection brings the sharing of conclusions as the student links the knowledge their group learned during questioning and during research and deliberation. Spine-tingling Excitement No one book on inquiry should answer all your questions. An inquiry book should create more questions than it should answer. That ambiguity is what makes inquiry teaching and learning fun and exciting. What's the secret behind the changing face of the teacher-student connection? Mystery Mindtronics and Inquiry Alive, two books on one CD, have quietly achieved a leading place in the global field of discrepant event inquiry as a resource for teachers and students. The books provide their highest value as teachers learn to write their own mystery-motivating discrepant event narratives. Detective Technology Listening to or reading the discrepant event narrative is one of the first steps, a student takes before he or she slaps on the hat of a super sleuth or a researcher. The discrepant event presents an account of an event or issue. The narrative (story) contains puzzling information that calls attention to an odd ambiguity or a perplexing enigma. Similar to a murder mystery or a scientific investigation, the unanswered questions spark interest. Interest launches a desire to explore clues. Clues often expose surprising information. Together, students face conflicts exposed by the clues. Student groups sort clear-cut facts from misleading evidence. Learners gauge, measure, weigh, and fit jumbled pieces together, during active and creative "detective technology" teamwork. As the sleuths work, they learn about the topic of study suggested by the discrepant event narrative. Additionally, students realize the basis for using reason and logic to find probable answers. 100 Discrepant Event Modules Mindtronics provides 100 discrepant event modules. Each module consists of activities to help empower student sleuths of all ages and all learning levels. Student teams explore using research and investigation. Teachers guide student detectives as they work the following components: key concepts, problem statements, probable solutions, possible student hypotheses, fact sheets, and reference pages. Live URLs/websites related to each discrepant event help teachers and students. An estimated grade level for each inquiry module gives teachers a general idea of skill suitability. Teachers having gained a working knowledge of inquiry methods by reading Inquiry Alive use the lessons in Mindtronics, immediately. Optimize Inquiry Inquiry Alive offers teachers these tools: explanations and sample teacher-student dialogues. The explanations and dialogues keep the questioning sessions productive. Moreover, dialogue examples show how to convey the inquiry strategy, present the process, move the discussions, spotlight the issue in question, and apply the design. When used together, the two books enhance interdisciplinary learning and optimize first-hand experience, and, the nature of inquiry. Content Mastery Inquiry skills learned in Mindtronics and Inquiry Alive help students become proficient at networking. The networking in small breakout groups typically organizes students into democratic, adaptable, self-sufficient, yet, supportive "go-getter" units. Students apply individual and collected experience with problem-based learning to solve discrepant events in the expert way scientists and detectives investigate: they ask questions, find the main question, inspect the problem, and network. The explosion of knowledge, from coalitions of resourceful students, generates a robust understanding that often leads to stunning displays of content mastery. Theorists Instead of Terrorists! "I can think, ask questions, find answers, and solve problems. I go home and surf the Web to find more stuff about what we're studying. I know the difference between a hypothesis and a theory." The prior quote is a familiar remark from young students. Inquiry learners find lifetime self-direction and poise as theorists! The spotlighting of one inquiry element at a time at its critical point both strengthens the logic recovery of students with short attention spans and retains the interest of students with multi-task skills. The Power of Give-and-Take The changing face of the teacher-student connection exists partly thanks to the excitement of learning, the power of validation, the guidance in a safe harbor classroom, and mutual respect. Pretense of democracy halts the unity of inquiry. Similar to the give-and-take of a family with diverse members, the affirmative interactions of teachers and students emerge around instructional objectives realized through inquiry quests that use each person's strengths. Whiz Kids It turns out that the stealthy activities going on inside rich learning environments emanate from the schools' whiz kids. To the surprise of many though, the rising star learners are the same apathetic students we've seen that have shown few increases in their real knowledge application and execution, until they've used inquiry. Often, the schools' new whiz kids, despite their old learning levels, were the schools' failing students. Now sheltered by the integrity of trust and self-confidence, whiz kids devotedly choose inquiry, regardless of their age. Students Sensibly Pinpoint Problems Teachers, implementing inquiry, see the line of attack students discover to better understand the workings of politics, the sciences, dogmas, the flaws and powers of world knowledge, beliefs, ethics, and the democratic principles nations need. Mind-Emotion Friendly The classroom-proven strategies in Mindtronics and Inquiry Alive enable the teacher to revise the instructive materials for students as new learning evolves. Used as a leadership guide for today's classrooms, the books accentuate teaching that's mind-emotion friendly. The mystery-solving exercises, the teacher, and the students boost social skills, organize supportive activities, and promote interest in topics students expect to hate. Multiplex Mindtronics and Inquiry Alive act similar to the multiplex theaters students love. Multiplex theaters show all sorts of movies. The movies add stress and relieve stress. Stress is the result of factors that call for a response or change. When a stress fuels positive change, it intensifies the learning process. Why Would Students Care, Nowadays, about a Discrepant Event? Why do people climb mountains? Why do we send astronauts into space? Discovery. When faced with a puzzle, a "whodunit" challenge, or an inquiry, our eagerness, our growing anticipations, and our hopes heightened by allies all collide creating "lightning bolts" of resolve. Goose Bump Moments Humans survive by answering our lightning bolt resolve. Lightning bolt resolve converts, along with our discovery maps, the nuts and bolts we believe we seek and the element we secretly seek: a goose bump moment. Teacher-student Connection In the best respect, goose bump moments change the face of the teacher-student connection. Home Tree Media If you think we can assist you, with a customer service, contact us by clicking on the Contact Us link, in our site menu; fill out the Contact form. You'll hear from us soon. Would you like to know more about our main book authors, Dr. William C. Bruce and Jean K. Bruce? For instance: Dr. Bruce, and his wife Jean, first authored a discrepant event book entitled: Learning Social Studies Through Discrepant Event Inquiry. Go to the following URL addresses to learn more about William C. Bruce and Jean K. Bruce through their blogs, too: University of Texas at Tyler, EPP University of Texas at Tyler, CPDT http://www.uttyler.edu/c_i/bruce.htm Free discrepant event lesson, 9-11 Blog: Pay Teachers More Blog: Test Scores Back to: Resource Page Free Discrepant Event, Friends, smoking & tobacco lesson