Southerlin December Blog: Inquiry based learning

Inquiry based learning is unfortunately something that I struggle with as a teacher. I have learned many more ways of implementing inquiry into my lessons but I would love to do more with it. It amazes me how much my students know and how much they can do when I simply step back and allow them. One of the biggest ways I use inquiry based learning is through introducing new books and topics of study. I show students the cover of a book, the title, and we take a picture walk without looking at the words. Then, based on what we have seen the students are encouraged to discuss what they believe will happen throughout the book, what will happen at the end of the book, who may be our main characters, and any questions they may have about the book before we begin reading. During our reading, we infer about what we believe will happen next based on our reading and our picture walk. It is amazing how many students can accurately guess what will happen in the story. I would like to figure out how to get my students to ask questions about their reading, such as; I wonder why the character is doing that?, or I wonder if this will happen next, or I wonder if the characters are going to go to this place and so on. I want them to also make connections to their reading and relate it to their lives so they can dig deeper into the book and ask more questions (I hope this makes sense). Another way I have implemented inquiry based learning is in science. I learned how to make a wonder station during our professional development at the district office and used the strategy to introduce my matter unit. The kids did an incredible job of asking questions about the items on the table. Then, after discussing the questions and talking about the items, the students were able to hypothesize what we were going to be learning about. It was quiet remarkable to see in action. I would love to learn other ways to implement inquiry based learning. I want to know what the students know and what they want to learn about through their own initiation, not through me forcing them to learn about something required.