Inquiry-based Learning

Inquiry-based Learning

1. Example steps to an inquiry

   • Spark interest (i.e a narrative book)
     • Oral Discussion
       • Invite students to jot down or sketch what they know. (Gives us as an educator a baseline of their understanding)
         • Work in small groups share info gathered (Our job is to see patterns)
           • Encourage children to make some claims about important components
             • (Educator job- See the big ideas/curriculum expectations/potential assessment)
               • Let the children make connections (i.e. books/videos) I provide explicit instruction, aid in exercising critical thinking skills
                 • Redo initial exercise, review growth in understanding

2. Students questions/ideas/observations at the center of the learning experience

   • Pedagogical mindset
   • Inquiry Stance-Combines the best approaches to instruction
     • Explicit instruction
     • Small-group and guided learning
     • Build on students interests and ideas
     • Moving students forward in their paths of intellectual curiosity and understanding
   • Education at its best

3. Educators play an active role

   • Knowing when to introduce students to ideas that will move them forward in their inquiry
   • Aid children to move from wonder to enacted learning
   • Be repsonsive to students learning needs
   • Establish a culture
   • Educators as a provocateur
     • Model how to contribute and extend ideas
     • Model how to question and how to carry out an investigation
     • Find creative ways to introduce ideas/subject matter
     • Facilitate aid in discussion
   • Integrating curriculum
     • Focus on Big Ideas and not specific expectations from the curriculum
     • Have a deep knowledge of the big Ideas
     • Students will develop skills and touch on many subject areas.

4. Educators and Students

   • Share the responsibility for learning
   • Co-author the learning experience
   • Mutual responsibility for planning
   • Assessment for learning-ind./class

5. Students

   • Involves open ended investigations into a question or problem
   • Evidence-based reasoning
   • Creative problem solving
   • Problem finding
   • Contribute to a collaborative inquiry
     • Ask questions to clarify
     • Provide overreaching theories
     • Make connections to the big ideas
     • Educators will recognize the patterns in contributions from ind./whole class- Aid students to contribute in new ways (see educator role as a provocateur)