"Inquiry-based learning" is one of many terms used to describe educational approaches that are driven more by a learner's questions than by a teacher's lessons. It is inspired by what is sometimes called a constructivist approach to education, which posits that there are many ways of constructing meaning from the building blocks of knowledge and that imparting the skills of "how to learn" is more important than any particular information being presented. Not all inquiry-based learning is constructivist, nor are all constructivist approaches inquiry-based, but the two have similarities and grow from similar philosophies.
How is inquiry-based learning different from traditional approaches? In the traditional framework, teachers come to class with highly structured curricula and activity plans. They act as the source of knowledge and as the person who determines which information is important. There is certainly creativity and flexibility in how each teacher runs his or her class, but the topics and projects are driven and evaluated based on what a teacher, administrator, school board, or bureaucracy have decided what children should know and master.
In contrast, inquiry-based learning projects are driven by students. Instructors act more as coaches, guides, and facilitators who help learners arrive at their "true" questions—the things they really care about. When students choose the questions, they are motivated to learn and they develop a sense of ownership about the project.
Because inquiry-based learning is premised on helping children ask questions, instructors themselves must learn the art of asking good questions.
What kinds of questions make for good inquiry-based projects? As we said, they must first be questions that the kids truly care about because they come up with them themselves. In addition, good questions share the following characteristics:
· The questions must be answerable.
· The answer cannot be a simple fact.
· The answer can't already be known.
· The questions must have some objective basis for an answer.
· The questions can not be too personal.
Actually I usually use this techniques in my classes and the students enjoined to do it but I was not know the name of this techniques.
No comments:
Post a Comment