Inquiry Based Learning

Asking the Hard Questions Makes for Easy Learning

Three Relevant Connections to Student Teaching Experience

1. Building a Culture of Inquiry

I think it is important that while I am in my student teaching experience I create a culture where students feel safe asking questions. I believe this goes farther than simply telling students that they can ask any questions they have. Realistically, I want to be asking lots of questions myself to guide their learning and furthermore provide a verbal reward for asking questions about the content. 

      2.  Teaching Reflection

Reflection is a portion of the experiential learning model which states it's significance. For the most part, this reflection is done by asking questions to facilitate thinking. For example, a student could ask what just happened? Why did it happen? And how did it happen? Regardless, of the question or topic, I want to be a teacher that makes a student intentionally reflect on the content. 

      3. Creating Inquiry Based Activities

Creating activities that promote inquiry will be the key to success if I am striving for inquiry driven learning in my classroom. The readings suggest creating these activities ahead of time and with careful planning. It almost makes IBL out to be much more difficult than it really is. Furthermore, when creating these activities, the teacher plays a different role in the conversation which is pretty neat.

Two Connections to TeachAg Courses

1. AEE 311

In AEE 311 we learned that motivation increases with autonomy. When implementing inquiry based learning, students will hopefully gain more autonomy and be more motivated to learn the material.

      2. AEE 413 

In AEE 413 we talk about program planning and part of that planning is identifying key stakeholders in the community. For IBL, a teacher can be creating materials that include members of the community for an increased sense of relevancy generated by the learners.