Reconnect and Refresh

Time flies and it is already the 2nd half of 2022 😆

Though I'm currently taking a hiatus from work, it was a refreshing experience to be back in school for an afternoon of learning. I particularly enjoyed the sharing by Cryst on Inquiry Based Learning. While it is certainly not a new approach, the sharing was insightful and allowed me to revisit certain key concepts and gain new ideas to implement in future lessons.

Connect 

While the learning pyramid theory has been around for a long time, inquiry based learning reiterates the same benefits of learning by doing. It is best for learners to discover facts and relationship, and they would better remember concepts and knowledge discovered on their own. At the same time, inquiry based learning promotes student agency whereby students are given certain autonomy to research on their preferred area to satisfy their curiosity and broaden their knowledge beyond learning for exam.

Extend 

While inquiry based learning is currently the key approach in Geographical investigation and Historical investigation, it certainly has benefits that can be extended to other areas of teaching and learning. Tapping on the lesson shared where upper secondary Geography students research on case studies on  food production and eventually weave in the example in their essay. This can be extended to other upper secondary Geography topics such as Tectonic Hazards where students research on their preferred case study of earthquake/volcanic eruption and highlight the impacts and responses, perhaps presenting their key findings in the form of a news article. Likewise for the topic of Tourism students may take on the role of a tourist and plan a travel itinerary to their dream destination, highlighting the different types of tourism available in the place. In addition, we may also tap on existing resources of articles on the humanities reading site to draw relevance to the topic of research.  

Challenge

Through the sharing, I am able to have a clearer understanding of the various types of inquiry. However, one challenge would be in determining when is best to use which form of inquiry. I guess it depends on the student profile/ability and perhaps there might also be a need for differentiation within a class if students are of varying readiness. Another concern would definitely be the constrains of time. While inquiry based learning is beneficial in helping students to learn better, more curriculum time may be needed. Thus we have to be selective in determining the topics that we would want to use this teaching approach. 

At the end of the day, students may not remember all the humanities content they have learnt in school but they will bring with them the lifelong attributes of being able to think critically and independently when they are empowered to have greater ownership of their learning.