Inquiry-based learning is a student-centered approach to instruction that begins by posing a question or problem to engage students’ natural curiosity.
A new insight that I have developed about inquiry-based learning has to do with the role of the student in the entire process. The student might be the one to develop an investigable question for the class to research; however, this is not always the case. IBL is still taking place when the teacher determines the content and guides their students to identify appropriate questions that they would like to explore. Rather than telling students what they need to know, they are encouraged to explore the material, to ask questions, and to share their ideas with others.
Teachers can use a wide range of resources to ensure that learning is happening throughout the investigation and the research. In addition to books, databases, and internet search engines, students can be exposed to several different Web 2.0 tools that allow for formative assessment, differentiation of the learning process, and personalized choices for final products which show their learning. It was really beneficial to explore the Discovery Education Techbooks. I thought this was a very helpful curated collection of content resources that could be shared with teachers developing their own IBL lessons and units.
In the future, I will feel much more confident in coaching our district staff through the use of inquiry-based learning in the classroom. This will help me out greatly in the work I do training teachers in how to create problem-based learning scenarios. I believe this work is very important because our students need to be offered plenty of opportunities to identify problems based on their own observations. They need to know how to generate meaningful questions from their wonderings and how to critically analyze the information that they are constantly bombarded with every day. Teachers need to know how to best encourage their students’ natural curiosity and how to provide connections to real-world situations. Inquiry-based learning provides educators with the tools we need in order to create this type of environment. I really connect to the idea that by coaching teachers in strategies like IBL, we are really reinforcing the instructional benefits of going deeper into the content as opposed to teaching a wide range of concepts.
Students should be learning the process skills that will help them succeed in both college and in their future careers. The responsibility of helping students learn the skills and strategies that will allow them to be productive, well-rounded members of society has fallen, to a great extent, on educators. Designing instruction based on inquiry is an engaging, purposeful way to accomplish that objective.
As we discussed in the beginning of the course, inquiry-based learning is very different from the traditional education that I received growing up in the 80’s and 90’s. Instead of relying on the teacher to present all of the knowledge through a lecture format, students are able to play an active role in designing and directly participating in their own learning. IBL is another important step in helping teachers personalize learning for their students, ensuring maximum success.
Jacqueline Firster 