Inquiring Minds Want to Know

This semester I have been struggling about one of my course choices – Inquiry Based Learning – for a variety of reasons. I’ve gotten very mixed reviews of the course from colleagues and so far it’s been – how shall we say – loose in it’s organization. I’ve largely decided to use my time here as an independent study of sorts, which I guess fits the spirit of inquiry. So far the readings have been centered on K-12 and undergraduate education methods and how inquiry based learning can fit in those environments. My inquiry will be more about how these methods might be applied to adult professional training. I did lots of workshops at CDP and will be doing more through MfYM. While I generally get good reviews for the workshops I give, they do fall into the traditional model. I stand up in front with a powerpoint and pour knowledge into my audience. Granted, I use lots of story-telling to illustrate the points I’m making in the presentation and avoid reading PPTs with a passion. We tried to incorporate more hands-on opportunities but it was difficult to find labs with sufficient numbers of scanners, etc.

So now I’m wondering how can you use more inquiry here. People often show up already self motivated, with questions in mind, seeking answers. What are the points of inquiry for shareable metadata? How could you build lessons around this instead of lectures. Will money-paying adults be receptive of this approach or will they demand answers to their questions? Hands-on activities have been warmly received, hopefully if the purpose of inquiry exercises is clear it can be as useful.

I will be interested to see if there’s more literature about inquiry in adult or professional situations – most of the readings on the syllabus seem to continue in the k-12 vein.