What are KB stories?
KB stories are true stories of how inquiry takes place in a KB classroom. KB stories outline the trigger activities, the key inquiry question and students’ ideas answering the key inquiry question. KB is about improvable ideas. As such, these stories also highlight how students’ ideas about the key inquiry question evolve through self-directed learning and classroom discussions.
In summary, a KB story outlines the five stages in which inquiry occurs in the KB classroom:
- identifying students’ problem of understanding,
- generating ideas,
- connecting ideas,
- improving ideas and
- assessing how much students have learnt.
How will reading these stories help you as a teacher?
The key player in implementing KB in your classroom is YOU, the teacher. The KB teacher must plan trigger activities to identify students’ problem of understanding, direct classroom discussion by selecting relevant ideas from students, help students refine their ideas and finally assess students’ understanding.
This series of KB stories
- present a variety of strategies that KB teachers use to carry out inquiry
- show how KB teachers carefully select students' ideas to direct classroom inquiry towards curriculum goals
- show the vast improvement in ideas and deep learning that can result from a KB classroom
How should KB stories be read?
KB stories should not be read as the ‘right’ way to implement KB. Instead, KB stories suggest a possible way of implementing inquiry in your classroom and the ideas that might result.
The dynamics of every classroom is different. As such, the method presented in these stories might not work in your classroom. It would be good to read these KB stories with these two questions in mind:
- What will I do differently when implementing this?
- What will my students' experience be like when implementing this?