I have to admit that I was very narrow-minded about today’s in-class group activity, and this is something I really need to work on. We were given the task of teaching students “how to prepare a cup of tea”, and to create a rubric to assess the learning of the students. I, along with my group members, was completely unsuccessful at seeing the big picture. We forgot that we were supposed to be promoting inquiry, and instead focused on just instructing.

We were too focused on how to tell the students how to make tea, so that we did not stop to think about how we could gain the curiosity and attention of the students. It was disappointing to realize towards the end of the activity that we failed to remind ourselves of the importance of inquiry and engagement.

This was a mistake on our part, but that’s what being in this program is all about; this is the time that we make mistakes and learn from them. This was a sort of awakening for all of us, and I hope that for the remainder of this upcoming year, we will all remind ourselves of the importance of inquiry in education. As one of my instructors has said, “teaching is not telling, and learning is not listening”. I will definitely be reminding myself of this more often from now on, and think of creative ways to make teaching more engaging.