Inquiry is Essential for Learners Today

Think about it.

You are taking a walk and you see something that makes you wonder- what kind of plant, or bug or animal is that....
You're planning a trip and are looking for the best route, or best restaurants along the way.
Or you hear or read about something you aren't sure about...
Or your mother calls and tells you about a diagnosis your father just got from the doctor, it's an odd sounding diagnosis, one that you've never heard of.

What do you do? You pick up your phone and search. What comes up? Some articles, maybe images, perhaps some blogs or newspaper articles, or a general article from wikipedia.  How do you know which ones are worth reading?

It depends! It depends upon the question you asked and the information available. For example, with the medical information, we know we'd get reliable information from a reputable institution like the Mayo Clinic or John's Hopkins University.  WebMD might have some information, but we might want to cross check that with what's listed on the Mayo Clinic site.
We do this every day.  ALL the time.

So, if we do this all the time as adults, are our students learning that this is how we learn?  Are we giving our students opportunities to ask questions, search for information to understand their questions and learn from them?  Are we allowing them to search the internet and library resources to answer their own questions?  Are we giving them opportunities to mess about in the information context to figure out what is worth reading and paying attention to and not? Are we giving them tools to handle themselves well in this information context (how to find and evaluate information sources)?

I'd argue that today this is one of the essential learnings that we should be teaching all our children and we really miss this opportunity all the time.

If not we are missing a huge opportunity to teach students how to learn from information.  If we are teaching them facts that they can get easily from a quick search on their device and off the internet, like what are plate tectonics, or when was the civil war we are doing them a HUGE disservice. They can find that information so now we can be asking them deeper questions and they can ask deeper questions that they are interested in learning about.

How do we learn today? We learn by asking our own questions, seeking information to understand those questions and creating meaning for ourselves.

We learn through inquiry, folks.  Inquiry is really important for our students to be engaging in within the school context.

If you agree, and want to learn more come check out Guided Inquiry Design, a complete program for learning standards based content, the skills described here, and so much more.

Thanks for reading.
Leslie Maniotes, PhD
@lesliemaniotes