In this weeks class we had the opportunity to listen to Trevor MacKenzie talk about inquiry-based learning and how we can incorporate it into a teaching methods. While we learnt quite a bit about inquiry-based learning last semester I found that this conversation furthered my understanding of the idea and provided me with a visual, (attached below) that made the four types of inquiry very clear. The visual that I found very helpful was of a swimming pool where each type of Inquiry are in different depths of the pool which signifies the amount of freedom in the Inquiry. The visual also makes it obvious as to why students who have not yet mastered structured inquiry are unlikely to succeed when they are placed in guided inquiry based classrooms. In all of my academic experience I have never been given the opportunity to partake in a free-inquiry until this semester, and in all honesty I found it very hard to come up with a topic because I am used to receiving a set of rules or guidelines when it comes to topic choice. If I were to go through the steps mentioned in the visual below during my time in school prior to university I feel that I would have achieved high grades because I would have been more passionate and interested in what I was learning.
Photo of Inquiry Learning by @trev_mackezie (Trevor MacKenzie).
