Inquiry-Based Learning

Inquiry-Based Learning

Chip BruceMay 3, 2010Chip Bruce

May 3, 2010

TodayToday

• Inquiry concepts

• Hybrid approach of this class (Adam)

• My thoughts

• Reflection on course: Looking ahead

Activity: Inquiry concepts

Activity: Inquiry concepts

Hybrid Teaching

What can we learn from the process?

Limitations

•Organizing class was difficult, especially with need to anticipate student needs.• It can take different styles of teaching to present material online vs. classroom.• The way students discuss materials in each mode will be different.•GSLIS has limited resources for technology.

Strengths

• Students who participated in class were motivated to take this course specifically.• Participants used IBL skills being taught to evaluate the direction course was taking.•Without the hybrid system (even if flawed), geographically diverse students would not have been able to take the class.

Questions

Please break up into smaller groups to discuss these questions and offer a response:

1.What was the most difficult thing you encountered during interactions between online and physical students?

2.What did you learn from the process of having to make sure both online and physical students were represented in class discussion?

3.What benefits does this format offer beyond basic access? Do the limitations outweigh the strengths?

My thoughtsMy thoughts

Fallibilism=>experience

Fallibilism=>experience

• Our knowledge is incomplete

• Even if we could know, the world keeps changing

• A Serious Man

• “Experience is our only teacher," Charles Sanders Peirce

• “Affectionate interpretation,” Jane Addams

Learning community

Learning community

Inquiries:adventure, technology,

engagement, transformation, teaching,

ethics, democracy

Inquiries:adventure, technology,

engagement, transformation, teaching,

ethics, democracy

Adventure: Words(Cathy Fosnot)

Adventure: Words(Cathy Fosnot)

• remissible

• catchable

• playable

• admirable

• admissible

• permissibile

• plausible

• potable

• changeable

• guidable

• explosible

• amenable

• available

• extensible

• endurable

• edible

• indispensible

• kissable

• passable

• penetrable

• visible

• fixable

• incredible

• divisible

• readable

Whole vs. changed roots

Whole vs. changed roots

Evaluating, revisingEvaluating, revising

• What about amenable, fixable, potable?

• It’s -able if it derives from French: potable

• What about divisible?

• Doesn’t y -> i change the root?: variable

• What about flexible, sensible?

List of problem words

List of problem words

More evaluating, revising

More evaluating, revising

• It’s -ible if -ion could be added: division

• What about edible?

• English has strange exceptions.

• Root ending in d or s, add -ible, otherwise, -able, unless root is a word in itself.

• What about flexible, fixable?

• What about terrible?

Bigger questionsBigger questions

• What is the real rule?

• What is spelling?

• Does learning take place only in school?

• Will you remember it if you don’t figure it out for yourself?

• How will you know it’s true if you don’t investigate?

More evaluating, revising

More evaluating, revising

• Original roots of flexible, terrible, edible all end in s.

• All -ible words have original roots ending in -sus or -ibilis.

• Origins of words in Middle English, Latin, French, Old Provencal, Old English, Middle French, Middle Latin

Technologyhttp://bit.ly/GaryMcDarby_ID4

Technologyhttp://bit.ly/GaryMcDarby_ID4

Engagementhttp://fwd4.me/C64

Engagementhttp://fwd4.me/C64

TransformationTransformation

• “a crime here that goes beyond denunciation” –John Steinbeck

• “So long it's been good to know you –Woody Guthrie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqiblXFlZuk

• Weedpatch School http://weedpatchcamp.com

Assumptions about teaching

Assumptions about teaching

Teachers should regularly lead class discussions, presenting clear explanations and examples of basic concepts and/or asking questions so that students can piece together the principles desired.

All teachers need to master their subjects, as a prior condition to trying to teach them.

Teachers can and should transmit their knowledge to pupils.

Teachers should, at first, present simple and easy problems and tasks, in order to build pupils' courage to tackle more difficult and unfamiliar tasks.

Teachers should give equal attention to all pupils.

Teachers should give quick feedback on pupils' work, indicating clearly what is wrong and why.

Children should focus first on content and second on means of expression.

Children should strive to understand their teachers and the textbooks.

Students' and teachers' schemes

Students' and teachers' schemes

Easley, Jack (1987). A teacher educator's perspective on students' and teachers' schemes. In D. Perkins, J. Lochhead, & J. Bishop (Eds.), Thinking: The second international conference (pp. 507-527). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Ethical visionEthical vision

• Human nature & conduct, John Dewey, 1918, http://fwd4.me/MJU

Democracy: creative

Democracy: creative

GoalsGoals• "You can hitch your wagon to the stars, but you

can't haul corn or hay in it if its wheels aren't on the ground." –Mordecai Pinkney Horton

• “A long-range goal to me is a direction that grows out of loving people, and caring for people, and believing in people’s capacity to govern themselves, The way to know they have these capabilities is to see something work well on a small scale.” –Myles Horton

• “Goals are unattainable in the sense that they always grow.” –Myles Horton

Inquiry-based learning

Inquiry-based learning

• "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire" –W. B. Yeats???

• Inquiry is not a way to learn, but how we learn

• “Messenger,” Mary Oliver, http://fwd4.me/MJT

Questions about inquiry-based

learning

Questions about inquiry-based

learning