Why is inquiry important?
The term “inquiry” is thrown around a lot in education, but what is it and why is it important? According to the International Baccalaureate Organization (2009), Inquiry is “the process initiated by the students or the teacher that moves the students from their current level of understanding to a new and deeper level of understanding.” Inquiry can take many forms, with some examples including engaging in questioning, wondering, and exploring, making and testing theories, and experimenting and playing with possibilities (International Baccalaureate Organization, 2009). Teaching through inquiry is important as it allows both students and teachers to be actively engaged with the learning process, and thus fosters deep thinking and consequently learning.
Why I like teaching through inquiry:
Teaching through inquiry places the student in the active role of being a learner. Rather than the student being a passive participant who receives information from the teacher, the student is required to be engaged, collaborating, wondering, and thinking. I feel that over the course of my practicum I was able to enhance my ability to ask “good” questions that enabled my students to think deeply and critically. I also felt that I was able to design lessons that fostered inquiry and had my students engaged and excited. Please see the lesson sample summary below for an example. However, teaching through inquiry is definitely an art of which I am still improving. Particularly, I plan to continue to work on asking “good” questions that invite deep thinking and further questioning. Teaching through inquiry is something that I will continue to work on for my entire teaching career.
A Lesson Sample Summary:
During my practicum experience I taught a Unit of Inquiry with the central idea, Adaptation Impacts Survival. One of the earlier lessons focused on the concept of connection and how animals are connected to their environment.
From the provocation lesson, the students were divided on their opinion if a dolphin could live in a river. Based on this provocation, I designed a lesson around this debate. On the projector I presented the students with a picture of a dolphin and a picture of the Amazon River. I then had the students decide if “Yes, a dolphin could live in a river” or “No, a dolphin cannot live in a river.” Two of my students were adamant that they were in the “Maybe” group. From this, the students separated into their groups, yes, no, or maybe, and had to write down their ideas on chart paper of why they thought this. Each group then presented their stance to the other groups and tried to convince the other groups of their perspective. Many conversations and questions came out of the presentations. After each group presented, we watched a video clip on the Pink River Dolphin. After the video we had a discussion on how this was possible for this dolphin to live in the river, and many other conversations were started surrounding adaptations.
To see other inquiry lessons please see my “IB” page in this blog.
Professional Development:
Going forward with my teaching career, I would like to continue to work on my ability to teach through inquiry. To me this will mean doing research on, and attending workshops about, learning engagements, asking good questions, making thinking visible, and other inquiry related resources. I also think that talking with and learning from colleagues will be an essential part of my professional development as colleagues can be great resources. My most recent research has been on work by Ron Ritchhart.
In addition, I have been conducting my own inquiry project over the course of the year. This project revolves around self-regulation in the classroom, and my findings can be found under the “Self-Regulation” page in this blog.
References:
Making the PYP happen: A curriculum framework for international primary education. (Rev. ed.). (2009). Cardiff, Wales: International Baccalaureate Organization