What Is Inquiry Based Learning?

Inquiry based learning is not so much a method – it's more of a philosophy with guiding principles. Ultimately, it's about being comfortable with uncertainty in the classroom and allowing students to find answers themselves.

Allowing students to explore and “play” with ideas as they search for answers to questions, inquiry based learning is often embedded in project based learning or problem-solution based learning.  Inquiry based learning requires metacognition by asking students to think about what they are learning and how it fits into a bigger framework.

Inquiry based learning is not really a new idea. It goes back to the Socratic method – asking questions to make sure you know what you think you know and explain how you know it. John Dewey was also a proponent of inquiry based learning. Inquiry based teaching requires that students and teachers are comfortable asking questions without knowing the answer beforehand (which is the antithesis to the standardized testing atmosphere we are currently immersed in).  Inquiry allows students to ask questions in order to find answers, or ask where answers can be found. It’s about finding information and teaching kids to use it appropriately – absolutely the reason we need school librarians.

I don’t know where I found this quotation about learning, but I’ve come back to it for several years now. It seems to sum up the purpose of Inquiry Based Learning for me:
“In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” --Eric Hoffer

 

http://www.teachinquiry.com/index/Introduction.html

http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/inquiry/
http://www.inquirybasedlearning.org/?page=What_is_IBL
http://www.youthlearn.org/learning/general-info/our-approach/intro-inquiry-learning/intro-inquiry-learning
http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/socratic-teaching/606
http://www.garlikov.com/Soc_Meth.html