Inquiry Based Learning

My first takeaway this week with inquiry based learning came from the very public statement “Support, guidance, and leadership are vital if teachers are to make major shifts from a traditional didactic style of teaching to one that emphasizes inquiry” (National Academy of Sciences, 2000). This is not a new idea to me as I work in a school that values this structure for positive change. However, what is new to me is the public support of it. Though my school believes in support, guidance, and leadership at all levels for educational changes, we are an isolated instance within my district. My school is based off of a project-based, inquiry model, but what we do is often ignored or downplayed by other schools and administrators. We frequently have to defend our pedagogical choices. Thankfully, my principal, the teachers, and the support staff are all on board with these choices, but I understand why other schools do not take more positive risks like us. The support is just not there where it needs to be. I used to ask myself why more educators didn’t just act out on their own and try some things since they are the ones in control of their classroom once the door shuts. Because of this chapter, I have reflected on the fact that if a single teacher takes a risk and it ends up poorly, lessons are not allowed to be learned from it and experimentation in practice is further discouraged. Forward thinking can be squashed when all that is looked at by the administration are the mistakes.

My second takeaway from this week’s readings came from reading about there being no magic formula to follow when incorporating inquiry. Like other educational implementations, it is an art. However, as an educational artist trying out a new technique, I always find it helpful to at least have examples from people who have tried it before me. In the edutopia article the teacher said, “As a teacher you can always get a feel for when it’s time to stop doing something” (Mathis, 2015). While I agree that this is sometimes true, I feel like most of the time I either underestimate or overestimate the levels of inquiry in my classroom. So while I didn’t find this statement incredibly helpful, I did find it helpful to reflect on the statement, “Once the kids have already inquired about the topic, explored it, researched it, and produced something to demonstrate that they understand it, you can read that they're done” (Mathis, 2015). This was helpful in getting me to see what I may have been doing wrong in my ability to judge my students level of “doneness” with a topic. For instance, the research phase is probably my weakest point as a mathematician. So often, I consider my students “research” as their initial exploration of the material. However, there are definitely times where I could push my students to take this further in other aspects of their inquiry.

Mathis, G. (2015, August 24). Inquiry-based learning: The power of asking the right questions [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/inquiry-based-learning-asking-right-questions-georgia-mathis (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

National Research Council (2000). Inquiry and the national science education standards: a guide for teaching and learning. Chapter 8. InThe National Academics of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Retrieved November 19, 2017 from: https://www.nap.edu/read/9596/chapter/9 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.