In my opinion, one of our greatest challenges in shifting toward an inquiry culture of learning is the tension of 'needing to cover the curriculum.' It can be mind boggling to think of all of the expectations that exist, across all subjects and all strands. How can we possibly allow time for student choice in learning and for them to explore curiosities and wonderings with so much content to cover?
We are tasked with the challenge of supporting the development of creative, collaborative, problem-solving students who show initiative, perseverance and personal goal-setting. Yet, to allow for the time to develop these skills takes away time we have to cover content.
We would all agree that it's these skills that students need in order to be successful in school and later in life. So how do we work through this 'content' tension so that we can allow ourselves permission to take time for teaching and fostering the development of these skills?
While there is no prescribed formula for this, the Inquiry-Based Learning monograph offers some suggestions for working through some of these tensions as well as some practical steps for 'Getting Started with Inquiry.'
No comments:
Post a Comment