1. Take some time to think about your topic. Now write down what you know about it.
My knowledge of Inquiry Based Learning started off at ‘quite a bit’, however I feel as though it has grown to ‘a great deal.’ At the beginning of this learning I was very familiar with and competent at using the Information Model by Capra and Ryan. This is a model I have been referring to since the beginning of my teaching career and I have used across all year levels from Year 3 - Year 10.
I then became familiar with Kuhlthau’s ISP earlier this year during the Learning Hubs subject and have started to incorporate this model into my teaching and learning. Reflection plays a huge role in my current teaching pedagogy, however after researching this unit and ILA, I can really see it’s importance and have found a range of new ways to incorporate it more effectively. Reflection, feelings and thoughts are such a vital role within the inquiry process, no matter what model you are basing your teaching pedagogy on.
What is Inquiry Based Learning to me?
- Students undertaken their own journey
- Levels of facilitation and guidance
- Posing questions
- Collaborating with others
- Interviewing others
- Independence
- Scaffolding
- Gaining new information
- Gaining new skills
- Seeking
- Real life learning - authentic
- Making connections
- Reflection
- Feelings and attitudes
- Active learning
- Analysing - data analysis
- Synthesising
- Lifelong learning
- Critical thinking
2. How interested are you in this topic? Circle the answer that best matches your interest.
Not at all not much quite a bit a great deal
3. How much do you know about this topic? Circle the answer that best matches how much you know.
Nothing not much quite a bit a great deal
4. Thinking back on your project, what did you find find easy to do? Please list as many things as you like.
The easiest part of this task was working with the students and classroom teacher on the ILA. The students started off slowly and found the task of researching quite difficult, however the longer the students participated in learning experience, the more excited they were about the individual projects. The students were not use to having so much freedom and making decisions on their own, so watching them grow through the inquiry process was very rewarding.
Towards the end of creating the blog, I really started to enjoy creating and reflecting via this presentation method. In the beginning, I found the blod to be quite daunting and I viewed it as an extra, however the longer it went on, the more I started to enjoy it and I was keen to explore the multiple functions of blogging. After viewing my finished project, I can see that I started to embrace it after my first couple of entries. I also really enjoyed reading through other people’s blogs and I can now see how blogging is such an effective learning tool for all learners - children and adults.
5. Thinking back on your project, what did you find most difficult to do? Please list as many things as you like.
- Starting the task
- Time management - with full time work
- Breaking down the information
- Synthesising the information - I had an information overload!
- Defining Part A - I did not synthesis enough in this part of the task, I did more of a basic literature review
- The Blog - in the beginning
6. What did you learn in doing this research project? Please list as many things as you like.
- A greater understanding of Kuhlthau’s ISP
- A greater understanding and knowledge of ‘inquiry’
- How to create a Blog
- How to screen dump on a Mac
- How to attach You Tube clips to a Blog
- The vital role of incorporating reflection into students learning
- How to use the questionaire results to guide future learning
- How to use the SLIM toolkit
- How to narrow boolean search terms
- How to use Google Scholar and Boolify
- How to use the topic sentence structure at the beginning of writing
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