When first introduced to the term
‘Inquiry-Based Learning’ during the beginning of the semester, I remember
drawing several question marks in my notebook. It was a concept that was somewhat
absurd to me at the time as when I was growing up, my schooling experience consisted
of having the teacher stand in front of the classroom and dictating us
information. We then had to memorize those information, without necessarily
understanding it, and then answer questions on a worksheet in a unit-end test.
That was the reality of having all the students’ learning responsibility fall
solely on the teacher. This is not the case today as I do not see this style of
educating students being reflected in my school placement. I am currently
placed with a Mentor Teacher (MT) who teaches Literacy and Numeracy lessons to
all the Kindergarten classes in the school. Her approach for learning, as I
noticed with many other teachers in the school, are inquiry-based. At first, I
had a difficult time grasping the learning goals from observing my MT asking
open-ended questions and having various loose materials in the class, which
seemed to me as random and not very educational for them to play with. After
having read several articles on inquiry-based learning, my understanding of
this term has greatly clarified, which will be explained below.
Inquiry is a
simpler concept than I had originally thought. I started to understand that
inquiry is learning through exploring, which is naturally triggered by
curiosity. To me, inquiry-based learning it what motivates the student as a
learner and it allows the student to ask their own questions. Young children,
as seen in my Kindergarten placement, are already naturally interested in a lot
of things. This curiosity is fostered by the teacher, instead of being given
the questions and directions as I was accustomed to being a child. By having
choices of topics and materials to explore, inquiry gets at the heart of self-motivation
and learning for the true reason of learning. After having shadowed my MT for
several months, I have grown to learn that inquiry-based learning can easily be
implemented in all classroom by open-ended questions. In addition, putting out loose
materials (for whatever subject) allows these young minds to explore, discover
and satisfy their curiosity. For example, in relation to learning about science
in Kindergarten, a teacher can have plants, soil and seeds laid out in an area
in the class, and let the students ‘dive into it’ to explore the subject. Some
students would want to take the plant apart physically to learn about it, and
others would want to go to library to read about it. This also strongly
promotes inclusivity in a classroom, as science in very ‘fluid’. These
strategies can easily cater to students with physical disabilities and English
Language Learner students, as creativity is the main ingredient I found is
needed for students with all types of learning styles to be engaged.
Having worked with
young children in an elementary school and with my own personal experiences, I
have learnt first-hand that a classroom is filled with precious minds consisted
of various learning styles. From what I leave learnt by thinking about my past
experience, I think that teachers are responsible of teaching a concept in
multiple ways to accommodate the learning styles of each young mind to what can
be best suited for them by doing and sharing ideas with peers. As learnt in
class, we learn more from each other when sharing our ideas through discussion.
By doing so, teachers can assess and evaluate students by asking open-ended
questions and listening to them conversing while using the appropriate
terminology when describing their work in the explanation of their evidence. Listening
to students discuss amongst themselves, it allows the teacher to take in what
they already know of the subject as well as what questions they have about the
subject, and input that feedback into a lesson for those students. I have
learnt through my observation that students can show what they have learnt
about the subject by representing their understanding through a playdough
artifact, a drawing or a verbal explanation, as science is learnt by doing and
relating it to their personal experiences.
Students want to
learn because they are interested in it. We have learnt in class that science
is very dynamic and is constantly changing thanks to new discoveries. I believe
in having the right mindset as a teacher with their students is important,
which needs to be established from the very first day of class. In order to
establish that, I learnt from my MT that the teacher has to let go of a certain
type of teaching method, such as being a dictator for example, as it does not
accommodate all learning styles, because each child is a unique individual. However,
I do think that having an inquiry-based learning classroom can come with its
baggage of challenge as my MT explained to me. For example, the teacher has to
do less planning beforehand, because having 25 students in a classroom means
having 25 different questions about a subject that need to be addressed. Also,
each one of those questions means that they have a different take on it, and
you never know where it is going to go as inquiry learning is not structured or
organized. There is no ‘one size fits all’ in education. This is where the
framework of differentiated learning kicks in as it meets the needs of
different learners. In inquiry, students learn by going outside in the fields
and learn by doing as mentioned earlier, so they can become critical thinkers
and confidently make informed decisions. Being student-centered in a classroom,
teaching a lesson can be done through multiple approaches by implementing
visual aids, tangible manipulatives and auditory tools, to guide the students’
exploration of the subject. My MT taught me that assessment in inquiry is a
bigger picture because it is not the same content as they might not all learn
the same way, or learn the same things, and some might not even be interested
in the subject at all. This results in having intangible student evaluation as
they are no longer answering questions on a worksheet, which might leave many
parents confused.
Another challenge
I found during my placement in implementing inquiry into a classroom’s learning
is that parents might be afraid of inquiry-based learning as for them it is a
new method, one which they might not yet understand. They get worried about not
seeing worksheets being given to the students, hence not seeing their child’s
progress as the system has moved away from having a concrete grading system
assigned to their child to show their “score” on a question and answer
worksheet test. I wondered, how can a teacher ease a parents’ transition in
better understanding inquiry-based learning? I found that my MT explains to
them that she encourages her students to make their own decisions and not just
answer to a “boss”, which allows them to think in a new way.
As a learner and
new teacher, I was able to understand that educators are responsible of
fostering a sense of belonging for children at school (Ontario Ministry of
Education, 12, 2004). By creating an appropriate responsive plan when teaching
students, a teacher can cater to students of all sorts when discussing about
addressing scientific problems in the non-traditional way. I think that
cultivating a positive relationship between an educator and a student is vital
for the growth of a child. Each child should not be treated as an equal to another,
which is why the implementation of an inquiry-based learning environment paved
the path of curious critical thinkers.
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