What is Inquiry-Based Learning?

The Center for Inquiry-Based Learning
This site is from Duke University.  Click on the link "What do we mean by inquiry."

Reflection:  What is inquiry-based learning?  What are some skills that are associated with this approach?

Educational Standards for Inquiry-Based Learning

Most standards being written and adopted include an inquiry-based learning approach.  This approach is associated with helping students develop higher-order thinking skills and independent learning skills for life-long learniing.

Check out these sites and look for standards associated with type of approach.

National Science Education Standards
Standards that ask the inquiry-based teachers to be facilitators and supporters of student learning rather than as disseminators of knowledge.

National Council for the Social Studies Standards
Standards that suggest active student learning in a real-world context.

Reflection:  How do these standards relate to elements of inquiry-based learning?

Integrating Information Skills and Technology Skills

These two sites encourage the integration of information skills and technology skills into the regular subject matter curriculum.  They advocate a student-centered approach in order to engage students in learning these skills.

Impact - Guidelines for Media and Technology Programs from NC DPI

The Big 6 Skills Information Problem Solving Approach, http://big6.com/, Mike Eisenberg and Bob Berkowitz, 2000.

Reflection:  What are some ways that these sites suggest that you integrate information skills and technology skills with subject-matter content?  Are these suggestions practical?  Do you think it's the job of the regular classroom teacher to incorporate these skills into the curriculum?

The Internet and Inquiry-Based Learning

The Internet is a vast resource of information that is very suitable in the inquiry-based approach.  The Internet also provides students with a communication system for working with other students and getting access to experts in the field.

Go to each of these sites to help you get some ideas on how the Internet can be extremely useful in this approach.

Using the Internet to Promote Inquiry-Based Learning
This site has several links of interest to inquiry-based learning.

The Internet As Curriculum, http://www.fno.org/jan97/curriculum.html, From Now On - The Educational Technology Journal, Vol 6, No 4, January, 1997.

Reflection:  How can the Internet be used with the inquiry approach?  Give some examples.  What are some of your own ideas of using the Internet for this approach?

Progressive Education and Inquiry-Based Learning

The progressive approach includes an emphasis on student-centered learning and a constructivist approach to learning.  Students should learn to ask their own questions and then become engaged in finding answers to their questions.

These sites are rather extensive, so you might want to check out parts of them, which are related to inquiry learning.  Engines for Educators is a book, so just spend a little time looking at topics of interest to you.  The Constructivism web site is a list of many links to the constructivist approach.  Just go to a few to get an idea of how constructivism is related to the inquiry approach.

Engines for Educators, http://www.ils.nwu.edu/~e_for_e/nodes/I-M-NODE-4121-pg.html, Roger Schank and Chip Cleary, The Institute for Learning Sciences, Northwestern University, 1994.

Making Learning a Part of Life – Beyond the “Gift Wrapping” Approach to Technology, http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~l3d/presentations/gf-wlf/, Gerhard Fischer, Center for Lifelong Learning, 1996.

Constructivism (and related sites on cognitive constructivism and social constructivism), http://www.coe.uh.edu/~ichen/ebook/ET-IT/constr.htm, Irene Chen.

Reflection:  How are the concepts of progressive education related to inquiry-based learning?  Explain how constructivism is related to the inquiry approach.  What are some of your thoughts on some of the articles you read on this topic?

Problem-Based Learning

Problem-based learning and inquiry learning are quite similar.  The problem-based approach presents students with a real-world problem in which they need to investigate and then develop some ideas of solutions.  These approaches can be used to integrate educational technology skills and information skills with subject matter.

The Probe Method, http://www.unca.edu/education/edtech/probe2.htm, Glenn Shepherd, University of N.C. at Asheville, 1998.

Project Approach, http://www.project-approach.com/, Sylvia Chard, University of Alberta, 1998.

Center for Problem-Based Learning, http://www.imsa.edu/team/cpbl/cpbl.html, Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, 1998.

Reflection:  Pick out two or three ideas from these articles and discuss them.  What are some real-world problems that you could use in your own class?  Can you fit this type of approach into your standard course of study?  How?