I find that the inquiry approach is not only constructive, but an effective approach to learning in the classroom. Inquiry based learning is a great method for student and teacher interaction. Students not only learn about the topic through hands-on experimentation, but they can also learn how to interact and respond to their fellow peers’ opinions and hypotheses’. Children of all ages need to be presented with stimuli (shark skeleton and jars in the film clip) that further their inquiry and curiosity. Children need not be deprived of the opportunity to work as a team to discover answers to their questions through hands on experimentation with guidance from the teacher.Although “learning along with the children,” is challenging, I am comfortable with the idea of learning how to do it and become an effective facilitator. I believe that being able to facilitate discussion and learn along with the children to discover answers to curiosity with them is half the battle. I am comfortable learning along with the children because I want to help them discover and use higher level thinking and be there first hand to experience my students create wonders and understand natural phenomenon.
Among all the different types of inquiries, conducting experiments is what I would feel most comfortable with. This is partly because I enjoyed this most about science going through my schooling. More importantly, I would feel more comfortable with this type because I firmly believe that student-based learning through experiments is a crucial method of learning and comprehending curiosity and mysteries.
I believe that there are two ways a teacher can grow professionally in making the inquiry based approach easier and more desirable: practice and education. I think that the more a teacher practices learning along with the children and helping them discover, one will become more and more effective and be able to reach out more to the students. In terms of education, I think it is very important for educators to become better equipped with more experimental options and tools to give the children in order to utilize in the classroom to further their experimentation.
