First Meeting and Discussion in Second Life

It is overwhelming to be a new teacher. Administrators pile on work that other

teachers won’t take on. Dysfunction; complaining and

backbiting from colleagues adds a layer of stress.

In this high stress environment; once a teacher manages to find something that works, most are unwilling to surrender it to try something new.

Both Brekke And Dburge are teaching and are using some inquiry in their classrooms.

Brekke’s concentration is Earth Science but she is being required to teach Biology classes in addition.

While she is comfortable using inquiry-based learning in her area of concentration, she does not feel as comfortable with biology and this impedes her use of inquiry.

She learned Inquiry from doing outdoor education.

Dburge Quartz is teaching and using inquiry; he developed a physics lesson comparing diet coke and regular coke and had the students develop a hypothesis.

His 8th grade class can be hard to focus but doing inquiry motivated them.

He learned to do inquiry at a previous job.

Most teachers just don’t know how to do inquiry based teaching.

Many teachers say that there is no time for inquiry, but cites their biggest challenge as one of motivating students.

inquiry is so interesting and engaging that it motivates and keeps kids interested.

Students are testing the boundaries with a new teacher and the fear is that they won’t be productive without more rigid control.

Studying the theory is not adequate to learning to use inquiry.

Administrators should find and offer workshops for teachers taught by teachers skilled in the use of inquiry; and create collaborative ongoing inquiry-based classroom projects where teachers learn and use techniques hands on from other teachers who are successful at using inquiry. This needs to be recognized as a method of lightening the load instead of increasing it.