The more I explored throughout the week, the more that I learned about inquiry learning. Inquiry learning is having students collaborate, solve problems, develop solutions, deepen their understanding of content knowledge, and most importantly, tackle REAL-WORLD scenarios. In my opinion, inquiry learning provides students with the opportunity to become engaged, motivated, independent life-long learners.
Inquiry learning must be highly-structured. To achieve this, modeling and preparation is needed beforehand. With this being said, it is also as equally important that the teacher "let's go" of the students after they have successfully developed the skills to succeed on their on. It is easier said than done for many teachers who like to micro-manage.. and very much so a weakness of myself (a person who likes order and control in the classroom!). It would take some getting used to, but after the guidelines are established and the students know their roles, I strongly believe inquiry learning is a game changer for schools.
One of my favorite "ah-ha" moments throughout the week was when I stumbled upon the following definition: "Inquiry is an approach to learning that involves a process of exploring the natural or material world, that leads to asking questions and making discoveries in the search for new understandings". The biggest take away I had from that quote was the part about searching for new understandings. It reminded me of text-to-self, text-to-text, text-to-media, and text-to-world connections that I implement with my students. It is important for students to understand WHY they are learning something.. and inquiry learning is a great way to eliminate the need for students to ask WHY because they will already know!
The last video that I viewed was the teaching channel video regarding inquiry-based teaching and the inquiry approach. In this video, I learned that inquiry learning helps to eliminate ability grouping by pairing students with other students from various backgrounds and learning styles. It allows students to discuss important issues and concepts- race, gender, socioeconomic status, political affiliation, etc. Lastly, true inquiry learning allows teachers to teach to various instructional needs, consider student interest, and provide opportunities for students to continuously work in different instructional settings.
One "burning question" that I have: HOW CAN I DO INQUIRY LEARNING IN MY SMALL-GROUP REMEDIAL READING CLASSROOM!? It is very structured and basal-based.. with not much room for wiggle. I would be open to any suggestions or ideas that you may have!