The Inquiry Process Explained Visually for Teachers

Learning is all about being curious and inquisitive. It is a process in which learners explore the unknown through their senses using both sensory and motor skills. Being involved and engaged in the learning task is the key to a successful learning journey and to elicit this kind of engagement from learners, teachers need to nurture a learning environment where students take responsibility for their learning and 'where they are only shown where to look but not told what to see'. Such environment definitely requires a solid approach and an informed strategy to learning one that is dubbed: inquiry-based learning. Inquiry-based learning is essential in developing the most solicited 21st century skills : problem solving and critical thinking.As a teacher, you might be wondering about ways to inculcate the precepts of strategy into your teaching and lesson planning.

7 Ways Teachers Use Social Media in the Classroom Millennials live and breathe on social media, so teachers are learning how to incorporate the medium into the classroom successfully. In doing so, teachers not only encourage students to engage actively in the material, but they also provide online communities for students that might not exist for them in real life. But how are teachers infusing social media into their everyday lessons? 1. Anna Divinsky created an iTunes U class at Penn State University called Art 10: Introduction to Visual Studies, which she then adapted into a massive open online course (MOOC) on Coursera. For each class assignment, students were responsible for evaluating each other's work. Students shared their work on a variety of platforms. @psutlt #art10psu Art in the style of Rousseau (done in pencil) pic.twitter.com/oOA9UrlX6E— Wendy S Dixson (@WendyDixson) July 16, 2013 But what was even more surprising was how social media allows students to self-organize into smaller, independent groups. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Inquiry Learning Ideas for Math and Science With iPads Digital Tools Laurie Sullivan/Flickr By Sam Gliksman The following is the second of a series of excerpts from Gliksman’s book iPad in Education for Dummies. We tend to split science and humanities as though they were separate branches of life. Today’s interconnected world demands that the doctor, engineer, pharmacist, and scientist increasingly master skills that used to be classified within the domain of the arts. More than any other academic disciplines, science and math draw their meaning by relating to life in the “real” world outside the classroom. Granting students the freedom to inquire and explore makes them the investigators of life’s mysteries. This chapter looks at tools that can be used with the iPad to help you investigate phenomena and collect data. Whether it’s geometry, physics, or chemistry, scientific method starts with research, discussion, and the development of a hypothesis about the phenomenon being examined. Submitted by: Dr. Submitted by: Dr. Related

The Challenges and Realities of Inquiry-Based Learning Inquiry Learning Teaching Strategies Getty By Thom Markham Teachers in a rural southeast Michigan high school were recently discussing the odd behavior of the senior class. The teachers’ explanation: Project-based learning. Here’s the back story. Stories like this are about to become more important to educators. This is a steep challenge because it forces education to cross a philosophic divide. Standardizing Valuable Skills To put a new system in place, a first key step is to disseminate and train every teacher on a clear set of performance standards to assess skills required for effective inquiry, such as communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. The challenge: Right now, a standards-based environment forces teachers to straddle the inquiry process. Assessing Collaborative Learning The iconic model of the individual scholar has been replaced by team-based inquiry. Making Depth of Thinking Evident The challenge: In inquiry, process is as critical as the product.