EXPERIENCE INQUIRY BY KIMBERLY L MITCHELL

Inquiry-based instruction sounds complicated but is deceptively simple. Inquiry is teaching in such a way that the students are doing most of the work. They are asking questions. They are researching complex problems. They are formulating opinions. They are even at times teaching and offering feedback. Inquiry works at every grade level.

Inquiry learning is best nurtured by teachers who talk less and ask more, who stay curious, get personal, encourage evidence, and extend thinking time. This deceptively simple collection (“The Inquiry Five”) is the perfect pedagogical toolkit for teachers who know it is time to re-think their routine ways of working, but perhaps do not yet know how. At its heart, inquiry is an approach that positions and values the learner as an active, responsible, and capable partner in the teaching-learning transaction. The approach is unashamedly constructivist with its central tenet being to honor the learner’s right to “do the learning for themselves.” As Kimberly states in her own definition, it is about giving students every opportunity to do their own question asking and answer seeking.