Forum Post 3: Inquiry in our Classrooms

Hey Everyone,

For this third discussion of the forum post, I will be discussing the specific challenges to implementing the inquiry approach in the classroom.

OESTTA (2014, October 14). 3.

After reviewing the sources for this week, which are 3. How Can I Start to Plan For Inquiry, and 5. When to Move Beyond a Two Week Exploration, I realize that introducing and implementing an inquiry approach in the classroom is a great way to allow our students to become critical thinkers, however, I have identified two specific challenges to implementing this approach.

The first challenge of implementing an inquiry approach in the classroom relates back to the Curriculum where, "Teachers continually build their awareness of students' learning strengths and needs by observing and assessing their readiness to learn, their interests, and their learning styles and preferences" (page 34-35). While this may seem to be an easy task, I know from previous experience that teaching Intermediate students on rotary, where you can easily see over a hundred students a day, it can be extremely challenging to get to know each and every one of your students on this level in order to achieve a successful inquiry approach in the classroom. This process would need to be ongoing throughout the school year, and a tool such as, "Get to Know You Sheets" may be good at the beginning of the year in order to assess what the students want to learn about, however, continually questioning what the students want to learn and constantly getting to know their strengths and needs, as well as areas of interest, is something that needs to be continuous.

OESSTA (2014, October 14). 5.

Secondly, in the videos that were viewed, Pete (the Grade 4/5 teacher in the video) stated that students need to be able to effectively research and organize, interpret and analyze research throughout the day, and by the end of the school day they need to draw conclusions and communicate their research and ideas through presentation format. He insists that this is a great approach as there isn't always a teacher talking at the students and that they are learning from their peers. While I do agree that this is beneficial to the students, I have had experiences with students where presentations give them great anxiety, and while it is very important to be able to get our students to communicate effectively, I can see where this approach may be problematic. Therefore, I believe there are various ways for students to consolidate and communicate their understanding that isn't strictly in presentation format.

Fundamentally, I do believe that the inquiry approach to learning is an effective way to teach our students important skills; however, as each classroom dynamic is different, there may be various learning needs and challenges, so it is important to remain flexible in our instruction as educators and effectively meet the needs of all of our students. This relates to my next blog post extremely well as I discuss the importance of collaboration amongst colleagues, and how modelling this behaviour is critical in our classroom environment. 

References
OESTTA. (2014, October 14). 3 How Can I Start to Plan For Inquiry? YouTube Video. Retrieved From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5TgcuXdCjY&list=PL3xwSKk0KfrrHdxfp2DwgZR2OZABYoIaW&index=3 
OESTTA. (2014, October 14). 5. When to Move Beyond a Two-Week Exploration. YouTube Video. Retrieved From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSxY40mFJJw&list=PL3xwSKk0KfrrHdxfp2DwgZR2OZABYoIaW&index=5 
Ontario. (2013). The Ontario Curriculum: Social Studies, History and Geography. Grades 1-8. (6th Ed). Toronto: Ontario, Ministry of Education. https://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/sshg18curr2013.pdf