“We do not learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience”. John Dewey.
My Reflection: Inquiry-Based Pedagogy
This course has changed my entire perspective on the teaching and learning process. If I was to look at myself critically I would conclude that over two decades into the teaching profession left the teacher in me suffocated as I was just repeating the same process and style of teaching over time. Looking back I can see that there was a problem with my students every day. Their faces, their postures, and their mental absence, all told me that they wanted to be somewhere other than in my class—wherever it happened to be. No matter how much variation I tried to bring into my lessons and how many activities and creative homework followed the lessons, the students only engaged from the perspective of learning to give an exam. I did see some happy faces as well from time to time but they were few and far in between. I would see my successes when a student would become intrigued by the lesson, but such students were too few to satisfy me. However, student blaming doesn’t offer any consolation or solution.
The teachers in the school usually are pressed with time and do not get the opportunity to understand how to consider ways of doing the same things differently than they have always been approached. As I learned more about Inquiry-based pedagogy during the journey of this course, I realized that shifting from the instruction based learning to connect with them on a real level will equip students with the necessary tools for a deeper connection with the subject matter. Our job as a teacher is to stretch, embrace, and provoke our students to engage in work that shall hold more meaning to them besides the rewards that come with grades (Bailey 2013). Their learning and high achievement will just be the fruit of their own labor then.
This course has introduced me to a whole new world of teaching and learning and I feel better equipped with applying my new-found knowledge into a real classroom soon. Student engagement is the biggest reward of Inquiry-based pedagogy. A teacher’s satisfaction and success as a facilitator can be measured when she views her students to become more engaged in the learning process and deeply so. Inquiry learning is a substantiative attempt to memory creation. Guided and structured inquiry activities proposed by the teacher motivates the students to show more curiosity for a topic and deciding what they want to learn and how they want to approach it. The process of asking open questions, solving them through original strategies, empowers students to take ownership of their learning and thinking styles.
“All the knowledge in the curriculum is a product of someone’s hopes, fears, passions, or ingenuity. If we want students to learn that knowledge in a manner that will make it meaningful and memorable, then we need to bring it to life for them in the context of those hopes, fears, passions, or ingenuity. The great agent that will allow us to achieve this routinely in everyday classrooms is the imagination”
I have learned that Inquiry is based on questioning and imagination (Judson, 2016). And contrary to the popular belief, imagination cannot be restricted to develop only a few areas of the curriculum (arts and language) but it is the dynamo that aids learning in all subject areas. Student engagement takes flight when they are encouraged to question and think with guidance. Inquiry pedagogy requires a learning environment in which children feel safe to share and evaluate their ideas and the ideas of others. An inquiry learning environment provides opportunities for knowledge to be socially constructed through developing and evaluating questions based on children’s natural curiosities. However, this brief encounter with Inquiry pedagogy has underscored my perspective on what real teaching is about and helped me learn that inquiry-based learning can help the students succeed on standardized tests (McTighe & Wiggins 2013). Inquiry pedagogy affirms that love is the basis of all authentic teaching and learning. Diverse points of view, personal histories, prior experiences, and learning styles can be used to greatly enhance teaching and learning.
I wish to change a few elements of my “Unit Plan” before I use this project in the class. The suggestion I was provided by my classmates, to have a “day dedicated to the past” in place of “Grandparents Day”, will be now taken up as an Open Day where any two members of the family or extended family shall be invited. I have also inferred that the use of an Essential Question helps provide the students with a direction and is the focal point of all activities for an inquiry-based project. EQ is the essence of a guided inquiry and matures gradually through the lessons, helping the teacher and the students the opportunity to revise, rethink, and re frame their perspective all through the process. EQ can keep the learners and the teacher focused on the overarching purpose of Inquiry-based -learning. At the same time, Inquiry can also help meet the distinct needs and preferences of the students and keeps them at the center of the inquiry process. It helps them contribute and develop ideas and question themselves and the group in a constructive manner. Students are appreciative of the significant change they experience in an inquiry-based classroom as opposed to other classes, when they assume a high degree of responsibility for their learning. The greater appreciation for learning creates a more engaged classroom, which remains the biggest challenge for every teacher.
As a teacher, I enjoyed this inquiry project especially incorporating the “First people’s Principles of Learning” that regard: all learning is embedded in memory, history, and story; and requires exploration of one’s identity. These principles also suggest that the real outcome of learning is to support well being of self and the family, which should be holistic, reflective, and relational. My entire project was based on learning from our elders and being respectful of our relations. “Storytelling Across Cultures” was aimed at understanding the self and others and finding common grounds from each other’s past.
Engaging students to get meaningful learning requires to possess genuine love and need to build relationships and connections as much to the process of learning as is to each other and the world. Friesen (2009), outlined the basic five principles for effective teaching: teachers are designers of learning who make judicious use of time while working with the students and foster interdependent relationships. I learned that it is important to collaborate and work with others and exchange ideas outside my classroom. Teachers also improve their practice in the company of peers. As a teacher when I do so, I shall be able to empower my students to understand the importance of working together as a group and unfold their worlds. Working in groups assists both students and teachers to master the content, as they recall, use, and, ultimately, reinforce the content for each other. Collaboration can be a powerful tool for inquiry learning as group work can prove to be helpful in the revision process whereby students evaluate each other’s work and then revise with their peers’ feedback in mind. The unit was planned by keeping these principles in mind, as they outline the learning approach taken in classrooms today and provide deep learning opportunities. The exchange of ideas with other teachers can help to build connections required to better our skills as a teacher.
My love for learning has brought me to a new country and although I did not get to learn with the Inquiry approach when I was in school, my own life has been a big learning. It is through a lot of self-reflection and the burning desire to learn, know and understand more that motivated me to come this far. I can only conclude that my association with students and the hope that they bring, inspired me a lot to fan my quest to learn. I owe my curiosity to all the experiences in real life that helped advance my sheer love for learning and that is how I plan to work on this pedagogy with the students. My biggest learning from this course has been that Inquiry Learning is inspired by a person’s inner quest that can help the students to see the intrinsic rewards of learning and instilling a mindset that thrives on enjoying the process and not someone’s approval.
This course has been a reflective one in more ways than one. As I wrap this reflection, I am full of gratitude for my facilitator who helped me take up this course and kept me motivated to learn further and also build on who I am, as a learner and retain my sense of wonder. The key to connecting to the students lies within the heart of an aware teacher who knows what lies within themselves as each teacher unknowingly brings herself to the class. The teacher therefore must follow the interwoven pathways of intellect, emotion, and spirit to reach out to our students and foster the process of teaching and learning Palmer (1997). Thanks, Jodi for being this and more.
Thanks a lot !!!!
References
Bailey, D. (2013). Outside the Lines: Student Perspectives on Inquiry Learning. Savouring the Ish.https://savouringtheish.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/outside-the-lines-student-perspectives-on-inquiry-learning/
Egan, K., & Gillian, J. (2016). Imagination and the engaged learner: Cognitive tools for the classroom. Teachers College Press. https://moodle.tru.ca/pluginfile.php/1367002/mod_resource/content/2/Egan%20and%20Judson%20Imagination%20and%20the%20Engaged%20Learner%20Chapter%20One.pdf
Mc Tighe, J., & Wiggins, G. (2013). Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student. https://moodle.tru.ca/pluginfile.php/1366977/mod_resource/content/1/Wiggins%20ad%20McTighe%20Why%20Use%20Essential%20Questions.pdf
Ministry of Education. (2015). Introduction to British Columbia’s Redesigned Curriculum. https://moodle.tru.ca/pluginfile.php/1366944/mod_resource/content/1/BC%20Curriculum%20Introduction.pdf
Parker J. Palmer. (1997). The Heart of a Teacher: Identity and Integrity in Teaching. Change, 29(6), 14-21. DOI:
10.1080/00091389709602343 https://twitter.com/sbraegger11/status/1232704157422739466