Inquiry Lesson

Based on your learning experience in the LifeSaver lesson, describe the attributes of inquiry learning.

The purpose of inquiry learning is to find out about a topic through asking questions. It is systematic and goes through a series of steps. First analyze your materials and resources and determine what can be discovered using what is available. Then it can be beneficial to brainstorm possible questions and ideas. Next, one might determine what steps to go through to find out the answer to the inquiry. The next step is to conduct the experiment or research, while keeping track of the data. Sometimes this can be done easier using Excel. Afterward, an analysis of the results must be done to determine if the original inquiry was answered and to prompt further questioning in the future.

An inquiry assignment would be a great thing to teach to students. I think of all of the individual students who ask individual questions about topics. Teaching them how to find an answer to their inquiries using this approach, would give them just one more tool on how to be active in their own learning.