It is my first time to know about inquiry. Hence, it’s a whole new concept for me. Before this course, I did not know about inquiry, so at the beginning, I believed that inquiry-based learning was equivalent to discovery learning, but I have a deeper understanding of inquiry-based learning through this semester. First, I would like to share two quotes.
“The most valuable aspect of inquiry is gaining perspectives, which is facilitated by a group of individuals exchanging their perceptions of things, showing and explaining how they see the given matter” (Bai, 2005. P.46)
“Inquiry is a dynamic process of being open to wonder and puzzlement and coming to know and understand the world.” (galileo.org)
By the end of the project, I think my biggest challenge is how to design courses to meet the needs of students, stimulate students’ interest, and at the same time enable teachers and students to achieve a series of activities through inquiry. Because when I made the lesson plan, I realized that the content of each lesson is different, and the arrangement of the course content will also be insufficient. Some courses may be designed with sufficient teaching content and activities, but some courses are the opposite.
If I were to re-plan this project, I might do a preliminary survey on the needs of students and the views of different teachers on this topic, and then design this course. Because this topic is an increasingly popular topic, even though my project is just a very simple framework or my initial thoughts.
One of the changes in my thinking is to distinguish between discovery learning and inquiry-based learning. I realized that discovery learning has differences between inquiry-based pedagogy. To a large extent, discovery learning was a self-directed process to discover them on their own. However, I think that inquiry-based pedagogy could reflect on the different productive ways, such problem-based learning and project-based learning, which are guided approaches to inquiry. Moreover, I know that inquiry as “a process of problem-detecting, formulating, and solving” (Schwab, 1958, p. 378). Hence, we could realize that inquiry is not about exploring and focusing on the process, but also pay attention to how to resolve the problem that we found.
Additionally, I know people learn best when they try to do things that are challenging and of great interest to them, which reflects the close interaction of emotions in cognitive and ability development (Galileo Educational Network, 2021). Hinton, Fischer, and Glennon (2012) articulated a similar sentiment when they shared that “Active engagement is a prerequisite for the changes in brain circuitry that are thought to underlie learning. In educational terms, this suggests that passively sitting in a classroom hearing a teacher lecture will not necessarily lead to learning. Conversely, active engagement with educational material within or outside of school will support learning”.
For my project, as my topic is career education, I was inspired by Jodi’s suggestion to seek a placement as an “apprentice” or do a job shadow in the community for students, I’m not only allowing students to learn in class, as I hope they can experience by themselves. Therefore, I think that through this project students could make a better plan and manage their lives. Meanwhile, I think students may have a variety of career thoughts of career at the beginning, even though they may encounter problems, challenge or puzzlement in the process of learning. This is an inquiry. Moreover, I believe that students could make a plan for their future and are excited about what they imagine, then they may feel closer to their education and more interested in learning how to achieve their future life and career goals.in a nutshell, so through this semester learning, I think inquiry is a kind of way to cultivate people’s ability of divergent thinking and do something by themselves. Inquiry is to allow students to do whatever they want, and teachers give them a certain guidance and trust them.
In addition, I understand that assessment is important for students in the process of inquiry and learning. Bailey (n.d) states that if students know that at the end of the semester, the teacher will use a specific goal as a criterion, which will affect the possibility of students actively exploring the subject. For me, I have not realized that, even though I am still a student. Hence, I have a different understanding of assessment, which is assessment should be a tool to help students achieve success rather than teach them to give up.Besides, it has impressed me that giving students a growth mindset when teachers give students assessment. Boaler (2015) stated that a growth mindset has a positive effect on students learning that they can believe in their own capabilities. Meanwhile, the purpose of the assessment is to provide students with positive constructive feedback and the information needed for learning, as well as information on growth mindset (Boaler, 2015). I really appreciate that I learn the importance of assessment for student learning, no matter self-assessment, peer assessment or teacher assessment. I hope this will help me when I become a teacher in the future, the whole process of learning and assessment will bring encouragement rather than harm to students.
For my future teaching practice, I have to say I really like inquiry-based learning. it’s hard to incorporate inquiry into my teaching practice, as I’m not sure how to use inquiry-based learning properly for those students who will take institutionalized examinations. However, I will try my best to enable students to inquire and then improve students’ learning participation, enhance their ability to construct knowledge, and strengthen students’ abilities in various aspects such as collaboration through inquiry-based learning.