The Challenges and Realities of Inquiry-Based Learning

Inquiry Learning Teaching Strategies Getty By Thom Markham Teachers in a rural southeast Michigan high school were recently discussing the odd behavior of the senior class. It seems the 12th graders were acting more civilly toward the junior class in the hallways. The prom was also quieter and more well-mannered than in previous years. The teachers’ explanation: Project-based learning. Here’s the back story. Stories like this are about to become more important to educators. This is a steep challenge because it forces education to cross a philosophic divide. Standardizing Valuable Skills To put a new system in place, a first key step is to disseminate and train every teacher on a clear set of performance standards to assess skills required for effective inquiry, such as communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. The challenge: Right now, a standards-based environment forces teachers to straddle the inquiry process. Assessing Collaborative Learning Figuring Out Knowledge Related: Inquiry-Based Learning

Creating Classrooms We Need: 8 Ways Into Inquiry Learning If kids can access information from sources other than school, and if school is no longer the only place where information lives, what, then happens to the role of this institution? “Our whole reason for showing up for school has changed, but infrastructure has stayed behind,” said Diana Laufenberg, who taught history at the progressive public school Science Leadership Academy for many years. Laufenberg provided some insight into how she guided students to find their own learning paths at school, and enumerated some of these ideas at SXSWEdu last week. 1. BE FLEXIBLE. The less educators try to control what kids learn, the more students’ voices will be heard and, eventually, their ability to drive their own learning. Laufenberg recalled a group of tenacious students who continued to ask permission to focus their video project on the subject of drugs, despite her repeated objections. 2. Laufenberg’s answer: Get them curious enough in the subject to do research on their own. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Hands-On Science Partnership | Advocacy for hands-on, inquiry based science education JIBLM.org - Journal of Inquiry-Based Learning in Mathematics - IBL Course Notes in Mathematics Bridge in the Middle - Thoughts of a Middle School Principal Inquiry Learning Ideas for Math and Science With iPads Digital Tools Laurie Sullivan/Flickr By Sam Gliksman The following is the second of a series of excerpts from Gliksman’s book iPad in Education for Dummies. We tend to split science and humanities as though they were separate branches of life. But no matter what profession we choose — artist, plumber, historian, or salesman — we all use some form of scientific inquiry in our daily lives. Today’s interconnected world demands that the doctor, engineer, pharmacist, and scientist increasingly master skills that used to be classified within the domain of the arts. More than any other academic disciplines, science and math draw their meaning by relating to life in the “real” world outside the classroom. Granting students the freedom to inquire and explore makes them the investigators of life’s mysteries. This chapter looks at tools that can be used with the iPad to help you investigate phenomena and collect data. Submitted by: Dr. Submitted by: Dr. • Does the sun really rise in the east? Related

Is School Enough? Documentary Film Delves In A documentary film premiering on public television today — “Is School Enough?” — takes the viewer inside the lives of teens from various backgrounds and reveals the importance of tapping into students’ passions to drive their learning. These are some of the covered topics. Students at English High School in Boston helped pilot a social networking and planning tool called Community Planit. The online platform offers participants a series of missions, problems to solve and questions to answer about how the school district could improve and meet student needs better. As a player completes missions, he receives tokens to spend on the priorities he’d most like to see in school. “I’m always trying to keep my ear to the ground to get my kids involved with meaningful projects,” said Xavier Rozas, instruction technology coordinator at English High School. In fact, the English High School students’ engagement with Community Planit was crucial to its success as a planning tool for the district.

Explore, Play, Discover: Websites, Activities & More Search form Search Low-cost, teacher-tested activities for the classroom and the curious. Science of Cooking • Explore the science behind food and cooking with recipes, activities, and Webcasts.PreviousNext Explore, Play, Discover: Websites, Activities, and More Auroras: Paintings in the Sky Far north in the night sky, a faint glow appears on the horizon. Feeling Pressured Feel atmospheric pressure changes by stepping into a garbage bag. Camera Obscura Take the Beat Back Uncover the everyday origins of some extraordinary instruments. The Cold Water Candy Test Science of Baseball What's the science behind a home run? Arctic Seals These unique – and uniquely beautiful – seal species spend their lives amid the sea ice Plant Hybrids If you're a patient gardener, you can grow your own hybrid flowers. 2016 Total Solar Eclipse Telescope View Watch the telescope view of the entire 2016 total solar eclipse in Micronesia. Energy from Death Slinky in Hand Make waves without getting wet. Cheshire Cat Pages explore Connect

4 Phases of Inquiry-Based Learning: A Guide For Teachers According to Indiana University Bloomington, Inquiry-based learning is an “instructional model that centers learning on a solving a particular problem or answering a central question. There are several different inquiry-based learning models, but most have several general elements in common: Learning focuses around a meaningful, ill-structured problem that demands consideration of diverse perspectivesAcademic content-learning occurs as a natural part of the process as students work towards finding solutionsLearners, working collaboratively, assume an active role in the learning processTeachers provide learners with learning supports and rich multiple media sources of information to assist students in successfully finding solutionsLearners share and defend solutions publicly in some manner” The process itself can be broken down into stages, or phases, that help teachers frame instruction. 4 Phases of Inquiry-Based Learning: A Guide For Teachers 1. Student-to-material. 2. 3. 4.

Why Inquiry Learning is Worth the Trouble Visualization of SLA principal Chris Lehmann's 2011 talk: guiding kids' to thinking about how they think. Nearly seven years after first opening its doors, the Science Leadership Academy public magnet high school* in Philadelphia and its inquiry-based approach to learning have become a national model for the kinds of reforms educators strive towards. But in a talk this past weekend at EduCon 2.5, the school’s sixth-annual conference devoted to sharing its story and spreading its techniques, Founding Principal Chris Lehmann insisted that replicating his schools approach required difficult tradeoffs. “This is not easy. Lehmann’s 90-minute question-and-answer session tackled coming to terms with the impact of a shift to inquiry-driven learning by defining three steps: the enigmatic meaning of inquiry-based learning; the visible changes that signal a shift to that approach; and the potential drawbacks that shift may surface. “Inquiry means living in the soup. Related

The Inquiry Process Explained Visually for Teachers Learning is all about being curious and inquisitive. It is a process in which learners explore the unknown through their senses using both sensory and motor skills. Being involved and engaged in the learning task is the key to a successful learning journey and to elicit this kind of engagement from learners, teachers need to nurture a learning environment where students take responsibility for their learning and 'where they are only shown where to look but not told what to see'. Such environment definitely requires a solid approach and an informed strategy to learning one that is dubbed: inquiry-based learning. Inquiry-based learning is essential in developing the most solicited 21st century skills : problem solving and critical thinking.As a teacher, you might be wondering about ways to inculcate the precepts of strategy into your teaching and lesson planning.

20 Questions To Guide Inquiry-Based Learning 20 Questions To Guide Inquiry-Based Learning Recently we took at look at the phases of inquiry-based learning through a framework, and even apps that were conducive to inquiry-based learning on the iPad. During our research for the phases framework, we stumbled across the following breakdown of the inquiry process for learning on 21stcenturyhsie.weebly.com (who offer the references that appear below the graphic). Most helpfully, it offers 20 questions that can guide student research at any stage, including: What do I want to know about this topic? How do I know I know it? These stages have some overlap with self-directed learning. References Cross, M. (1996). Kuhlthau, C., Maniotes, L., & Caspari, A. (2007).