“Education is life itself.” - John Dewey (1859-1952), Vermont, USA.

The “inquiry” approach to learning is the educational response to the need for students to:

• Have a different way of “knowing” for the 21st century.
• Become more “multi literate”

Building on the work of American educational theorist John Dewey, inquiry learning has as its focus:

• A questioning approach
• Emotional engagement
• Student choice
• Authentic, real life purpose – “mattering”
• Student challenge
• Reflection Hmmm? So…oo?
• It’s not over till it’s over…

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References

• Dickinson, Gail D. (December 2006). The spirit of inquiry in information literacy. Teacher Librarian, 34:2, p.23-27.
• N.Z.Ministry of Education (2008). Approaches to social inquiry, edited by David Chadwick. Building Conceptual Understandings in the Social Sciences Series.
• Murdoch, Kath & Wilson, Jeni. (2008). Creating a learner-centred primary classroom: Learner centred strategic teaching. Routledge. A David Fulton Book.

Further reading

• Inquiry Learning: The Galileo Project (Canada): ”Inquiry” is defined here as “a dynamic process of being open to wonder and puzzlement and coming to know and understand the world. As such, it is a stance that pervades all aspects of life and is essential to the way in which knowledge is created…Inquiry is a study into a worthy question, issue, problem or idea – authentic, real work that leads to the testing, creation or building of knowledge.“
• Dr Sharon Friesen of the Galileo Project talks on a short YouTube video about inquiry as a disposition cultivated during teaching and learning, rather than a process that ‘gets done’ by students.
• Multiliteracies feature in discussion on What is 21st Century education?
  • In exploring how education should be structured to meet the needs of 21st Century students, this website examines the expanding range of 21st century literacies which students will develop.
  • These include multicultural, media, information, emotional, ecological, financial and cyber literacies. Students will use technologies, including the Internet, and global collaboration to solve critical issues.
• View a short YouTube clip on 21st Century Schools
• What is Inquiry? On this New Zealand site, Jan Kellow, an experienced primary school teacher and ICT leader, describes why she advocates inquiry learning. This site includes a YouTube video featuring Jan Kellow
• Kath Murdoch’s Integrated Inquiry Planning model (PDF). A framework for planning an Inquiry Learning unit is outlined in this model. Starting from selecting a topic or broad area for study, it moves through generating the big idea and questions to be investigated, to engaging and developing prior knowledge, researching to find answers, and finally to identifying new understandings and reflecting on new learning.

image by Horia Varlan

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