What are some challenges to inquiry approaches to learning?
Challenges occur when teachers do not fully understand inquiry approaches to learning. At first glance, some teachers may view inquiry approaches as “unstructured,” and will fail to do many things to make this approach a success. Teachers may also struggle to implement discipline-appropriate strategies when working with inquiry approaches to learning.
Make connections between project-based learning and three research based strategies (Choose strategies you have not already been assigned to read about). Give a brief explanation of the connections.
Cooperative Grouping-In a project-based learning setting it is very common to see a classroom working in cooperative groups. Effective cooperative learning occurs when students work together to accomplish shared goals and when positive structures are in place to support that process (Johnson & Johnson, 1999). This strategy would be a good way to implement PBL in the classroom.
Providing Feedback-In my opinion, this is one of the most important research-based strategies. During PBL the teacher must provide positive feedback to each of her students in order to motivate them further. Feedback has been shown to be one of the most significant activities a teacher can engage in to improve student achievement (Hattie, 1992). While doing my PBL I will definitely provide as much positive feedback as possible to my students.
Simulations and Games-This is one strategy that I believe could make PBL very successful. Simulations enhance this potential by making modeling dynamic. Games and modeling activities can elicit curiosity, create a demand for knowledge, and enable students to discover knowledge through exploration (Edelson, 1998). Simulations allow students to actually be involved with the situation at hand. Games teach many strategies, such as conflict resolution. This could be a very effective PBL strategy, but must be introduced in the proper way. It is easy for a classroom to get “out of hand” during a simulation or game, so it is important to have discipline points introduced at the beginning of the lesson.
References:
Baron, , B., & Darling-Hammond, L. (1991). Teaching for meaningful learners. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/pdfs/edutopia-teaching-for-meaningful-learning.pdf
Excellent identification of a barrier to successful inquiry based learning in the classroom!
ReplyDeleteExcellent connections between PBL and research-based strategies.
Total: 5/5