Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Learning
21st-century challenge
Find problems
Integrate knowledge from multiple
sources and media
Think critically
Collaborate
Learn how to learn
Inquiry-based learning
in which people construct knowledge
based on the questions that arise in
their lived experience
Definition?
a philosophy of education which recognizes the
diversity of learners and promotes the development
of a critical, socially-engaged intelligence. It draws
on a long history of theoretical and practical work,
but takes on new meanings in an age of digital
information and new communication technologies. It
typically involves what John Dewey calls the primary
interests of the learner: investigation--to find out
about the world; communication--to enter into social
relationships; construction--to create things and
change the world; and expression or reflection--to
extract meaning from experience.
Stephen's questions
Weather curriculum
Jack Easley asks students to look up at
a rainbow, but the children look down
and ask:
"Why do earthworms come out of
the ground after it rains?"
Inquiry cycle
Progressive education
The education of engaged citizens involves:
respect for diversity, meaning that each individual
should be recognized for his or her own abilities,
interests, ideas, needs, and cultural identity, and
the development of critical, socially engaged
intelligence, which enables individuals to understand
and participate effectively in the affairs of their
community in a collaborative effort to achieve a
common good
John Dewey Project on Progressive Ed.
Reflection on experience
We always live at the time we live and not at
some other time, and only by extracting at
each present time the full meaning of each
present experience are we prepared for
doing the same in the future. This is the only
preparation which in the long run amounts to
anything.
John Dewey, Experience & Education
Inquiry-based learning
Questions: arising out of experience
Materials: diverse, authentic, challenging
Activities: engaging. hands-on, creating,
collaborating, living new roles
Dialogue: listening to others; articulating
understandings
Reflection: expressing experience; moving
from new concepts into action
Teacher as inquirer
Learning to teach - 1
As a guide for the experimentation we so
freely encourage, the table opposite will be
helpful. We must caution, however, that it is
rife with half-truths--despite our best
efforts at disclosure. We are dealing here
with living things whose colors, habits, and
general constitutions will vary with locale and
with the skill of the individual gardener.
Learning to teach - 2
This unpredictability, which strikes terror
into the heart of the beginner, is in fact one
of the glories of gardening. Things change,
certainly from year to year and sometimes
from morning to evening. There are
mysteries, surprises, and always, lessons to
be learned. After almost 40 years hard at it,
we are only beginning.
Amos Pettingill, The Garden Book, 1986