The term “inquiry based learning” is used frequently in all teacher-librarian courses at UBC. We learn that it is an essential role of the 21st century teacher-librarian to facilitate students in finding answers to real-life problems. However, when a term is used outside the university classroom, I find that I develop even deeper understanding of how I can use it in my teaching. Through our topic inquiry this week, I really understood the process of inquiry learning and the passion that one can bring to a topic with real-life implications. It made me think how I could explain the importance of this type of learning to my new school community in a way that would be easy to understand.
Learning can happen anywhere. For me, it happened while I was looking for a place to eat the other night. I have been trying to find the best pizza place in the Vancouver for the last year. Suddenly, it occurred to me that I was doing inquiry based learning using ICT. I am using BCTF’s “The Points of Inquiry” as the framework for this inquiry. The quest for the best pizza started with me “wondering” if I could find pizza similar to the kind I had in Italy. Italian food and eating are being both passions of mine. This led me “investigate” this real-life problem using a variety of sources, including ICT. I looked up the word “pizza” using restaurant recommendation apps (e.g., Foursquare and Yelp) to locate and read reviews of possible pizza restaurants I wanted to try. At the restaurant, I “constructed” my assessment of the pizza based on the criteria I used for previous pizza restaurants. I then “expressed” my opinion to my others and “reflected” on where it stood in my ranking for best the pizza in the Vancouver. Then, the process began again when I visited the next pizza restaurant.
Having gone through this week’s inquiry on the various aspects of creating a school library blog, I realized an important role the blog will play is supporting the vision I had as teacher-librarian in the school. Facing a school that had only begun to use ICT in inquiry-based learning, I had to get my message through in a simple and understandable way. This idea particularly resonated with me as I was listening to my fellow classmates reflect in their summative presentations today the importance of getting others to not get caught up in the novelty of the ICT devices. Instead, as Michelle stated in her presentation, we needed to focus on the “why” of using in ICT devices in the classroom. As the example of the best pizza inquiry indicated, inquiry-based learning happens all the time in everyday life. As discussed in class, focusing on the linguistic cognitive domain, I needed to use their “methods to understand my methods.” An idea I have for making inquiry-based learning using ICT easier to understand is to use a real-life example (i.e., best pizza inquiry) using some form of ICT (i.e., iMovie). This could be then be included in a blog post about my role in the library.
Shirla, I love the pizza example! I do the same thing all the time, and I never thought of it as inquiry, but of course, it absolutely is. I think it would be so great if you created something like an iMovie with your pizza inquiry example to really help students understand the inquiry process. What better way to help them connect to the process than to provide them with a real world example that they can no doubt relate to! I can definitely relate. This fall, I stumbled across a really great rap song/video dedicated to the five main parts of short story (e.g. plot, setting, character, conflict, and theme). It used super straight forward language, a fun beat, and the rap medium to effectively describe the parts of the short story. My students loved it. They were singing the incredibly catchy chorus for weeks afterwards. We can absolutely achieve more and make learning far more meaningful to our students by working within their linguistic cognitive domains.
Now I want to eat pizza! I think the biggest challenge educators are facing is bringing life-based learning, as inquiry, into educational institutions that have existed and perpetuated institutionally-based learning. The history of the education system is based on a particular style of learning, one that positions the teacher and the students in particular roles. It also positions teachers in particular roles in relation to the administration, the community, parents, and government. Inquiry-based learning is a start to making learning in education institutions relevant to students (and society). I doubt that we will fully understand the magnitude of change that inquiry-based learning is bringing to the field of education and educational institutions until we have had a chance to implement inquiry over time. The biggest challenge individual educators face is the push back that is going to come from institutions habituated to certain ways of doing things, that perpetuate those ways of doing things. This is where educators have to draw inspiration and motivation from each other, to support these changes.