My Thoughts on Inquiry-Based Learning

Before this class, I had very little knowledge of inquiry-based learning. This week’s readings and discussions have definitely aided in my understanding of inquiry learning, but I still have a lot to learn about the topic.

I really enjoyed the Edutopia article “What the Heck is Inquiry-Based Learning” as it did a nice job explaining what inquiry learning is. I like how the article described inquiry-based learning as triggering curiosity (Wolpert-Gawron, 2016). For teachers, this is no small feat. The good news is, I think educators have a naturally curiosity of their own, and hopefully our curiosity will transition into the classroom and be modeled for our students. This will help grow classrooms that are inquiry-based. Classrooms that are inquiry-based will look different in that learning responsibilities are now placed more on the students rather than on the teacher (Wolpert-Gawron, 2016). I think for inquiry learning to be successful, teachers need to spend time modeling exactly what inquiry-based learning looks like for their students.

The article also highlighted the four steps of inquiry-based learning (Wolpert-Gawron, 2016):
1.     Students develop questions that they are hungry to answer.
2.     Research the topic using time in class.
3.     Have students present what they’ve learned.
4.     Ask students to reflect on what worked about the process and what didn’t.
These steps give me a better idea of what inquiry-based learning may look like and what the students are doing during inquiry learning.

I’m going to guess that most classrooms are not inquiry-based. I co-teach a lot in my role as the librarian, and I can’t think of any classrooms that I’ve been in that are inquiry-based. Most classrooms I’m in are more traditional in that learning is taking place through direct instruction from the teacher. This leads me to one burning question:
How easy is it to transition students from direct instruction to more inquiry learning?

I’m looking forward to learning more about inquiry-based learning in the coming weeks.


References

Wolpert-Gawron, H. (2016, August 11). What the heck is inquiry-based learning? Retrieved March 4, 2020, from Edutopia website: https://www.edutopia.org/blog/what-heck-inquiry-based-learning-heather-wolpert-gawron