So there's a few reasons why as educators, we really should be adding
inquiry based learning as a strategy to our quiver of teaching strategies.
And probably the one that I think is the most important is the
fact that inquiry based learning improves student motivation.
We're all talking about how demotivated students are, how they can't focus,
how they're not interested in anything.
And yet we have a strategy called inquiry based learning that is probably one
of the best ways to engage students.
Now inquiry based learning has been linked to increase motivation, particularly in
subjects like mathematics and science.
The research indicates that the specific benefits of inquiry based learning and
mathematics include things like improved student motivation and understanding.
Learning has to be lived and applied to real world applications.
That's why things like loose parts and manipulatives that we use in our
classrooms in early childhood settings
and even in primary school settings are so important so that students can really make
that learning concrete and so that they can have a hands on approach and so that
they can see and feel, and experience how learning is transferable and how learning
is valid in every area of their lives.
Now a study undertaken by the center of education research in Sydney
actually shows that a major factor in student engagement often is
curriculum content being relevant to their lives outside of the classroom.
So if children can't connect that what they learning is actually relevant
to them outside the classroom, they're not going to be engaged.
So often when you're teaching a concept, I'll say, well, when
am I ever going to use this?
Maybe going to learn this again?
That's not, it's no use to me.
They not going to be engaged.
So we, as educators have to, it is absolutely imperative that we find ways
where we can help students connect what it is that we're teaching, and what they're
learning to their own life experience to real world contexts for them.
Now two key ways that we can enhance this real world relevance in our lessons are
inquiry based learning and also localizing our curriculum to provide authentic
context for teaching and learning.
So things like making it real
so for example, if you had a school garden.
Where you're growing some salads or vegetables is actually when
you go to tend to that garden and your harvest, those fruits and
vegetables or herbs or whatever.
And then you actually have a cooking experience and you cook
them and then the students eat them.
That's this whole kind of experience where it's authentic and it's,
it's outside of just the classroom.
And even in high schools, they found that if they're teaching mathematical
concepts for example, but they then go and they use them in real life situations,
in a work environment , or in industry that makes things a whole lot more
real for children and they can then see the connection between what they're
actually learning in school and how they can apply it in real world situations.
And when students see that things are relevant and applicable to their
lives, and they are more engaged.
Now another benefit of inquiry based learning that we should absolutely always
keep in mind and never to be overlooked,
and that is the promotion of critical thinking and problem solving.
By engaging in inquiry students are enhancing their problem, solving
abilities, their critical thinking skills.
They learn to approach problems from multiple angles and develop well
developed or well supported conclusions.
Now I'm not just sucking the stuff out of my thumb.
I'm giving you these things that have come from real peer reviewed studies,
and I'll put the links to all of this in the show notes so that you can
read up and see this for yourself.
When you're giving children real problems that they should solve., using hands
on equipment and manipulatives, this becomes a lot less boring than us as
educators standing in the front of the classroom, explaining something and then
giving them a worksheet to fill out.
It's very robotic to do it that way.
Not even to mention boring.
I don't know about you, but as a teacher, I find that boring.
It's boring to teach in that way.
So we have to promote critical thinking.
You know, our world today can be so blinkered, you know, we have people
all the time telling us how to think, what we can do, what we can't do,
what's right, what's wrong, this is how we must follow this is the path.
What absolute nonsense.
Our job as educators is not to get children just to regurgitate
something that we are teaching.
It is to get kids questioning is to get them to have a look at information that
we provide them with and then for them to see what is this actually factually true?
Is there bias?
Are there other ways I can solve this problem?
Is there another way I can think about this.
That's real education.
Children, students have to do the work.
They have to do the thinking.
Not us.
Our job is just to give him the information and then teach
them how they go further.
Now the other thing is, and this is what I love about inquiry-based
learning is that also encourages a life long love of learning.
John Dewey, an educational reformer emphasize the importance of active
learning stating that education is not preparation for life.
Education is life itself.
I'm going to say that again.
John Dewey said that education is not preparation for life.
Education.
Is life itself.
So inquiry based learning instills this love of learning that
extends beyond the classroom.
We've got to give another thing that John Dewey said was give the pupil
something to do, not something to learn.
And the doing is of such a nature, as to demand thinking.
That the doing is learning itself.
That learning naturally results from the doing.
You know, children are born naturally curious.
And there's so many researchers and educational leaders in
educational thinking that have come up and said, well, you know what?
As schools and educators, we've actually schooled love of learning out of children.
And it's because I think we've taken the doing out of learning.
All of us.
If you think about the way you learn best.
Yes, there are, people are learning different ways, but we learn by
doing, you don't learn how to poach an egg just by watching a video.
Or by reading about it, you learn how to poach an egg by doing it.
And if you mess up, you think, oh, golly, what did I do wrong?
And you repeat it and you try it again until you can improve
on how you poach your egg.
This is just a simple example of what it is, but.
When you're actually doing it.
It encourages that love for lifelong learning and that's
our job as well as educators.
That should be our objective.
Every day when we entered the classroom is how can I get these kids?
To love learning.
Inquiry based learning also builds creativity.
Through inquiry.
Students are encouraged to think creatively.
To explore multiple solutions and to come up with new and original thinking.
We need innovators in the future.
The world is changing so fast.
It would be remiss of us not to help children develop critical thinking
skills, creative thinking skills, original thinking, because they are
going to need that for the future.
So inquiry based learning is the strategy that helps children prepare
for the future, prepares them for original thought and innovation.
Inquiry based learning also helps children to demonstrate the
interconnectedness in knowledge.
It helps students make those connections between different subject areas.
It
enhances their overall understanding and appreciation
of how knowledge is interrelated.
Now, if you listen to episode 61, which is last week's episode with
Tonya Gilchrist spoke exactly of this.
That teaching subjects in silos is really an archaic way of teaching.
It benefits no one.
It takes up more teacher time, and children can't my connections
to other subject areas.
Therefore, they don't see the relevance to themselves, and so they disengage.
Now what I want to say here is that.
I think this is probably an appropriate time just to say, because I think
that many of you are not going to say, oh, but you know, we can't
just do inquiry based learning.
Well, nobody's saying that you must only do inquiry based learning.
Inquiry-based learning is just one of the strategies that we as educators have
in our quiver of strategies that you
choose a strategy to best align with what it is that you want to teach children.
If you're teaching something brand new.
A new skill, new new knowledge, um, how to read.
The sounds and the alphabet you're going to use explicit instruction.
But you also can't just use explicit instruction.
Because explicit instruction is the foundation of learning.
It's the first step in learning.
It's giving them the basics.
The understanding and the knowledge that you want to teach them.
The level up from that has when you try to get children to understand, to
make connections, to ask questions, that's inquiry based learning.
So then you're going to pull that strategy out.
When you're teaching deeper concepts where you want to connect things
from one subject to the other.
Inquiry based learning is a strategy that will do that for you.
So when we trying to get children to make connections between different
learning areas, that inquiry based learning is our go-to strategy.
That's what helps them to see the interconnectedness in the various
and different learning areas.
Inquiry-based learning also provides for differentiation.
It fits naturally into our instruction, allowing some students
to explore topics on their own pace and their own interests.
While still catering to those students that perhaps still
need a little bit more time.
Students that need more attention from us students that still need to
develop that understanding in areas.
So inquiry based learning helps those kids that are ready to go ahead.
It gives them the tools to do that so that we as educators don't
have to hold those children back.
So inquiry based learning is an excellent strategy for differentiation.
Inquiry based learning also develops reflective thinking.
So it encourages students to reflect on their learning.
It's that whole meta-cognition side of learning.
Where we can go deeper into our learning and being self-aware
of the way that we learn.
As John Dewey stated, we do not learn from experience.
We learn from reflecting on the experience.
And of course on their doing as well.
But reflection that whole metacognition side of how do I best learn?
And so not just for students.
Reflection is key for us as educators and parents reflecting on our
own practice on our own teaching.
That is what makes us better teachers.
If we just go through the days and through our weeks and through our
months and through our years doing the same thing over and over again.
Well, as Einstein said, that's insanity because we can't keep doing
the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result.
So reflecting on our learning and asking ourselves questions in terms of
how the experience was, that's going to give us such deep insight into
our learning, and it's going to get deep inside into students learning.
And of course there's a downside to inquiry based learning.
And that is that students require instructional support.
There will be varied levels of student readiness for independent self-directed.
Learning in the same room.
And that's why as educators, it's our job to always keep learning.
To do research to do the reading.
I've seen teachers say that they just love inquiry, but they don't have the
time to fit it into the curriculum demands because their students don't
have the necessary skills and they don't have the time to teach those skills.
So, what are we to do then?
Are we just going to carry on disengaging students?
Are we not going to give them the skills they need to
navigate an ever-changing world.
Are we not encourage them to think.
Are we not going to encourage them to ask questions or we're not going to encourage
them to question the world around them.
To seek bias.
In today's world where so much of what we see and what we hear everywhere on
our news in social media, and even in schools is one person's way of thinking.
We need to teach children to be critical of what they see and what they hear.
And to question, how much of what is out there is actually true.
And to find solutions and to problem solve.
That's real education.
That's real teaching.
So for me as an educator, I think we should be finding creative ways.
Where we can teach our subject matter and slowly and deliberately
teach children to question.
And teach them about bias.
And teach them where to look for answers.
And as educators with the demands being made on us for all the paperwork, all
the administrative tasks that we have, it can be really difficult to find time, to
fit inquiry into everything else that our administration possibly want us to teach.
I think one of the things to remember is that as educators,
we are all creative people.
We have to come up with solutions for ourselves creative solutions so
that we can teach kids the things that really matter, not our opinion,
not the opinion, of mainstream media, not the opinion of the education
department, not the opinion of one book.
But where we can go for facts and where children can go and
look for solutions to problems.
I think that's the duty of teachers and educators is to give children the skills
they need to navigate this world of ours.
In last week's episode with Tonya Gill Christ, she spoke so much about
how we can practically include small changes where we give students agency
and teach them the skills of inquiry.
Remember in the early years inquiry is not a free for all,
actually, probably none of the years
it's a free for all until they get to the point where they can
do free independent inquiry.
But that takes time.
Inquiry should be structured and guided by you.
And even in the later years, some children are still going to need guided inquiry.
It's not that we just leave children and they go off and do things on their own.
That's where inquiry based learning gets a really bad rap.
Inquiry-based learning is absolutely structured and guided.
Now, if you want to learn more about exactly how to structure guided
inquiry lessons first of all I think the base place that you can
go to learn is go and get yourself.
Trevor MacKenzie's books.
I will leave links for you in the show notes.
He's got the inquiry mindset elementary edition, and then of course also the
inquiry mindset questions edition.
I would highly, highly, highly recommend you go and read those books.
I also have for you a little free download where I take you through
the process of how I break down inquiry in my own classroom, and
the process that I've followed.
You know, we are all individuals and we have to do things the way that suits us.
And I have shared in this little download, which I will link for you
in the show notes, the steps that I have taken with my own students.
And before I go one of the easiest, simplest ways for you to
integrate inquiry into existing lessons is with a picture book.
So you already doing your reading and your vocabulary using a picture book.
What better way is there really where you can go and use a picture book,
but remember not all picture books are created equal, so you really have to
get yourself a really good picture book.
Make sure that the picture book is linked either to your science curriculum or
humanities curriculum and you're reading you're using the vocabulary in the story.
And that is how using a picture book as your catalyst for inquiry,
as well as teaching all the other things that you need to do,
like your writing, your phonics, possibly even mathematics concepts.
Often things like measurement are so easy to incorporate into good literature.
And I have the perfect lesson plan for you, if you are teaching young children
Kindy, kindergarten and pre-kindergarten pre-primary year one, probably even I
have a perfect lesson plan for you with a picture book, I went walking, which
integrates both English, mathematics, and science into the curriculum.
And I've put both the Australian and American curriculum
outcomes there for you.
So please go download that and use it to your heart's content.
So I hope that this episode you've really found and seen how beneficial inquiry
based learning is to our students.
So that's it for today.
Have a wonderful week ahead.
Don't forget to go download the lesson plan that I have for you.
And also the PDF document on how to implement inquiry based learning
into your existing lessons.
Until next week.
I'll love and leave you.
And remember that curiosity is your superpower.
So stay blooming, curious.