“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.”
William Arthur Ward
- Claude Bernard -
“The joy of discovery is certainly the liveliest that the mind of man can ever feel”
Inquiry Learning
The Inquiry based learning provides an avenue to engage diverse learners and allows integration of different content areas to mimic the real world problem solving. The student centred approach allows building capacity in students to be life-long learners and develop problem-solving skills. Students are actively involved in asking questions, identifying information needs and planning relevant investigations. They also evaluate the gathered information in order to present rich answers to their questions (Wilson & Jan, 2009).
While, teachers are involved in the facilitating and teach for and through the process of inquiry in purposeful predetermined process of timely explicit teaching of specific skill and knowledge for students to develop lifelong independent learning skills (Wilson, 2013; Wilson & Jan, 2009).
Then, Now and The FUTURE
The world has transformed from factory workers of the industrial age to the 20th century information-age knowledge workers into the 21st century concept workers (Pink, 2008). This paradigm shift due to an exponential growth of technology and information demands that students are ready to face an uncertain future wherein the capabilities of success are collaboration, social skills, meaning making, inquiry and creativity. We as educators have to promote the skills in individuals for them to be able to active and informed citizens with equity, excellence; successful learners who are confident, creative individuals who can face the challenges of the unknown future (MCEETYA, 2008).
Personal Philosophy of Teaching
Education is the key to the success for the 21st century with a rapid rate of change as the skills needed to survive and compete globally are creativity, communication, collaboration and critical thinking (Bruniges, 2012). Creativity, as Robinson (2006) makes a convincing case for nurturing creativity in schools, is foundation of success in the 21st century. Critical thinking and problem solving has long expected to be the domain of the gifted and talented students; today it is imperative that all students need to possess these skills in order to be successful. The solutions of global problems is embedded in the skills of critical thinking, creativity, risk taking, self-motivating and regulated (Roekel, 2014; Wilson, 2013). It is important to prepare students to cope with the demands of the 21st century. Today, students are to be prepared with more than the knowledge about the core subjects but also develop the capacity to think critically, apply knowledge to new problems, and make decision and to become independent life-long learners. Students also need to develop their skills in order to be media literate, team players and communicators (Lonsdale & Anderson, 2011). Moreover, it is necessary for students to make connections between their lives and the learning at school in order to be engaged, develop their thinking and a better understanding of the world (Wilson, 2013). I believe Inquiry based teaching in an integrated curriculum will best prepare students by giving them opportunities to engage critically and develop the independent leaning skills necessary for them to succeed (Wilson, 2013).