Without question Trevor MacKenzie has been my favourite guest speaker so far. This class got me so excited about inquiry-based learning and validated my desire to teach students skills that stay with them and prepare them for a life of learning rather than to memorize and regurgitate information that will be lost quickly. Trevor’s books, Dive into Inquiry and Inquiry Mindset, are two excellent resources for teachers who are looking to incorporate more inquiry-based learning in their classrooms and I am so looking forward to his 3rd book that looks at assessment and inquiry. His website is also full of amazing resources and free graphics that can be used in your classroom. Visit his website here.

I think.. 

I think up until this class, the word “inquiry” has been something of a mystery to me and many of my classmates. It has been used in almost every class we have taken since the beginning of the school year but there hasn’t been a single instructor who has taken the time to explain what exactly inquiry is and how we as teachers are supposed to implement this style of teaching in our classrooms. For example, in this class we have been asked to do a free inquiry and a partnered inquiry on a tech topic…yet no one has actually taught us how to plan, research and report on an inquiry topic effectively.  

I know… 

What I learned from this discussion was that inquiry teaching is as much a value as it is a framework for delivering curriculum to students. An inquiry classroom has the learner actively contributing to the creation of the learning environment. The teacher’s role is to create opportunities for students to dive into topics they are interested in and leverage their ideas for future learning. Inquiry classrooms value student agency, control and ownership. Trevor shared his guiding question for his classroom which is: “Am I doing something for my students that they should be doing for themselves?”  

I wonder… 

As a pre-service teacher, I think my biggest wonder about inquiry-based teaching and learning is what does it look like when you are just getting started? Do you jump all the way in? Do you do little bits of inquiry here and there? Trevor shared that his experience was to go all in and learn along the way – that seems overwhelming and a little terrifying. And how do you prepare your students for a whole new way of learning?