Getting Started with Inquiry
Course
Now Is the Time! [3:46]
Before you can get started with inquiry, you have to understand your learner, the millennial. As a student-centered model, inquiry works well with millenials who like to be engaged with their learning.
We're going to set a basis of understanding here and really to know where to start, you have to understand your learner. So, let's take a look at why inquiry works for the millennial learners. They are inquisitive, they're creative, they are actually very social. This is not a newsflash to you, you know that, but they want to be engaged. When I was young, the mode of instruction was stand and deliver. Teacher had the knowledge, we sat there and listened, took notes and that was the end of it. Well, the age of stand and deliver is over. Students cannot sit there for 40 minutes to be talked to. In fact, brain research says, if you take the age of your students, plus or minus two minutes, you'll know about how long they can concentrate. So a ten-year-old can concentrate for anywhere between eight and twelve minutes. That's just enough maybe to engage them, to give background information, but they have to be doing something. That is why inquiry works for those learners, because it requires that a teacher changes their instruction so that it's student centered. We need engaged learning and that's why inquiry works.
The new Social Studies Standards that are coming out, the C3 standards, if you haven't heard about them, they're sweeping the nation, and it's likely that your state will embrace them soon. C3 meaning, Civil Life, College and Career ready, thatis the three Cs. But they say even that the age of memorizing facts and days is over, and they are operating under what they're calling the Ark of Inquiry. So, they even acknowledge that students need inquiry-based learning and it's prominent, you can check out their website to see. Not only have our students changed, but the standards have changed, so that they're embracing it.
We all are familiar with the Common Cores Initiatives for Anchor Standards that include research to build and present knowledge. Even if you drill down to different grade levels, some of the grade levels actually say that students should create their own inquiry question or research question. So, inquiry is that model where kids wonder and they question and then they investigate. So, the learning paradigm is ripe for change and it's likely that you're here listening to this professional development because you know you need a better understanding, and where do I start?
Let me just also note that inquiry-based learning is very similar to other labels, challenge-based learning or experience-based learning, problem-based learning. They're all student-centered models. Some of them have subtle differences, but they all include a similar skeleton where the students have a choice and they have a voice in what they're creating with the information, but it's no longer teacher-centered, but student-centered learning. These models all include manipulation of facts and curriculum content that require students to investigate and experience and learn and dig deep and strive to understand, draw conclusions, synthesizing what they're really manipulating and reading and wrapping their head around. So, that is basically the two reasons that you should embrace inquiry, one for the learner's sake and one because the standards are telling us to. Often your teachers don't even understand what inquiry-based is. So, this is your opportunity to gather that understanding and share with your colleagues.
Inquiry-based learning should be a priority for school library instruction because of two main factors that characterize students and today's educational environment. First, inquiry fits the learning needs of today's students through its active, creative, and social elements. Second, inquiry is a component of academic standards, including the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies Standards and the Common Core State Standards. These standards employ inquiry techniques, as do other student-centered instructional strategies, such as problem-based learning.
Before this workshop delves into detail about inquiry, consider what you know right now about inquiry in the school library, including understandings and questions. Without consulting any resources, write some responses to these prompts: What is inquiry? What does it look like in the school library? What examples of inquiry have you facilitated or perhaps observed? And what questions do you have as you begin this workshop?
MLA Citation
Morris, Rebecca J. "Getting Started with Inquiry: Current Understandings of Inquiry." School Library Connection, October 2024, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/1988315?learningModuleId=1988313&topicCenterId=0.
Entry ID: 2122835
Additional Resources
About the Author
MLA Citation
Jaeger, Paige. "Getting Started with Inquiry. Now Is the Time! [3:46]." School Library Connection, ABC-CLIO, November 2015, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/1988315?learningModuleId=1988313&topicCenterId=0.
https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/1988315?learningModuleId=1988313&topicCenterId=0
Entry ID: 1988315