It was once traditional that educators would feed students every piece of information. Currently it is becoming a priority that educators are the facilitators in the learning environment. This means that teachers will prompt students, but the students will be responsible for acquiring knowledge.
During a webinar, Chris Lehmann and others state many important facts about inquiry learning. The biggest statement that stood out to me in the Inquiry (2013) webinar was, "Inquiry, at its root, we can seek out answers, and we can really add that time and space to play with our ideas." This statement expresses; how during inquiry, an individual is meant to search over and over again, and fail many times before they reach their conclusion. Real life does not come with a guide or handbook on how we should live, therefor it is essential that students acquire inquiry skills during school, so they can apply those skills in their adulthood. I feel that students are spoon fed information, and this cripples them, and creates a dependence upon easily receiving information.
The good thing about teaching Adaptive Physical Education is that once I teach basic skills, I can prompt my students and allow them to inform the class. Students may answer questions about different skills, tasks, or exercises. They may also tell everyone what additional steps the class can take to improve in certain skill levels. I like to include inquiry into my lessons because my students do not have me at home to demonstrate exercises or skills. Repetition is very important for my students success. Although educators may teach the same content multiple times, students can build onto that knowledge through inquiry. A great teacher will lead their students to information without giving them all of the answers. With technology being so abundant these days, students need to be taught research skills repetitively. These skills will lead students to becoming independent learners and hopefully successful adults.
References:
Lehmann, C. (2013). Inquiry: The very first step in the process of learning. Retrieved from http://educatorinnovator.org/webinars/chris-lehmann-inquiry-the-very-first-step-in-the-process-of-learning/
Wiggins, G. (2014). Great teaching means letting go. Retrieved from http://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/great-teaching-means-letting-go/
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Blog Post #6
I look at inquiry-based learning as a process that contains trial and error. The learner is not given much information, they are expected to...
Without doubt, the act of inquiry is wonderful and has potential to develop critical thinking. However, developing inquiry activities for large classes filled with individuals who have different capabilities is very challenging. Additionally, inquiry activities take lots of time to engage in and monitor progress. I continue to present myself as cynical but unless educational reform occurs I think students will continued to be prompted to engorge themselves with lots of information rather than develop emotional and intellectual skills.
ReplyDeleteHello! I am so glad I finally found your blog :) I love what you said about how inquiry learning is also about failing. Students are so afraid to fail nowadays--they see failure as the end of the road for them. However, in reality, failure is simply an additional discovery. What is that Thomas Edison quote? "I did not fail, I simply found 10,000 ways that did not work."
ReplyDelete