Week 8 Blog #Etlead

Amber Hanson

Week 8 Blog #Etlead

Essential Question:

What are the importance of inquiry and questioning in your discipline? How do/can you nurture student passion in your classroom?

Before I begin expressing the importance of inquiry within my own classroom, let me define the word “inquiry” and it’s place in education today.  According to the article “Inquiry Based Learning”, inquiry is defined as "a seeking for truth, information, or knowledge -- seeking information by questioning”. Unfortunately in today’s classroom, the act of inquiry is often inhibited by the strong emphasis on fact learning due to the increase pressure of academic state standards. As students progress through grade levels the focus shifts from students asking questions, to merely listening and repeating the expected answer.  As educators it’s important for us to realize that memorizing these facts is not the most important skill in today’s’ world.  The work is constantly changing. If we focus on what is “known” we begin to miss so much.   

“The figure below illustrates why trying to transmit "what we know," even if it were possible, is counterproductive in the long run. This is why schools must change from a focus on "what we know" to an emphasis on "how we come to know." 

Illustration developed by Joe Exline

This chart illustrates that while knowledge is constantly increasing, so is the boundary of the unknown.”

In The New Culture of Learning the author explains that the traditional means of learning was through the transferring of knowledge from one person to another known as “Explicit Knowledge”.  But if we limit ourselves to such knowledge, we are missing the bigger picture.  It is through Tacit Knowledge, in which we engage in personal experience and experimentation, which is non transferable that we begin to grow. It is something that cannot be taught, but still learned.

"Tell me and I forget, show me and I remember, involve me and I understand."

We’ve all heard this quote before, and most of us would have to agree with it. Throughout our childhood, as well as adulthood we’ve been in a situation where someone is attempting to teach us something.  Whether it is the rules to a board game, or learning how to drive, the quote still applies.  Simply learning something by reading it, is not enough to commit it to memory (I wish it was that simple!), observation only may make a mark in our memory, but does nothing in terms of imprinting on our personal experiences.  But, if we are involved in the phenomenon, we are more likely to not only remember what was said, what was observed, but also what was experienced. 

Personally I believe that inquiry based learning is extremely important throughout all content areas in which I teach.  Although I will say, Science is the area most prevalent for this method of teaching. Part of the reason that inquiry based learning is used so often within my classroom, is based upon discovering my own students passions.  After doing some interests surveys in the beginning of the year I learned that a large chunk of my students were interested in the area of life science.  In the village in which I work it appears that the culture relies a lot on what the land and sea provide for them.  As a result, my students are often more engaged and excited when it comes to learning about specific plants and animals that relate to what we are learning about. 

I have found that if I nurture my student’s passion in life science, behavior problems go down and learning goes up.  Students that are passionate about what we are learning provides for a more dynamic and exciting environment.  As a result I feel that an inquiry based approach in which students are encourage to ask questions and investigate what they are interested in, can really flourish.  I feel that in the content of science, I allow for a lot more leeway in terms of the direction in which our lessons go, students hold the reigns and this is often what drives us as we progress through each unit.  I only hope that through these experiences I will begin to become more comfortable with this approach to learning in other content areas.

References

Briggs, S. (May 24, 2013). 25 Ways to institute passion based learning in the classroom. In infomedED. http://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/25-ways-to-institute-passion-based-learning-in-the-classroom/

Collier, C., Johnson, J., Nyberg, L., Lockwood, V. (2013). Learning science through inquiry. In AnnenBerg Learning. http://www.learner.org/workshops/inquiry/resources/faq.html

Exline, J. (2004). Inquiry Based Learning. In Concept to Classroom. http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/inquiry/

Thomas, D., & Brown, J. S. (2011). A new culture of learning: cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change.