Inquiry-Based Learning

After reading about Inquiry-Based Learning, I realized that the emphasis about this particular subject ties in very well with my concentration in English.  I am interning now at a Charter School and I am realizing that through observing other teachers, mainly English teachers, they are really using inquiry learning more so than traditional learning.  They really want their students to ask questions and figure out understanding and meaning, not just learn something and repeat it back to them verbatim.  Especially with a focus in English, I have come to see that when reading texts with the students, they come up with a variety of different meanings and interpretations and all feed off of what each other can interpret.  I have definitely used inquiry based learning when I substitute at the Charter School and do reading exercises with the students.  I like to read a passage with them and see what they think, and when they ask, "Ms. T what do you think," usually I tell them that I know what the text is about but I want to see what they can squeeze out of it.  I am a firm believer that depending on the individual, all texts can be interpreted a million different ways.  When you use prior knowledge and have a connection to certain texts it is even more different than if you did not know about it prior to reading it.  As far as how will it be intergrated in my own classroom, I want to create an enviorment for my students to not be scared, nervous, or embarrassed to ask a question or to put their opinion out there.  I was told all through school that it was not about the answer, it is how you got to the answer.  I can have th same answer as twenty of my classmates, but there is also twenty different ways of getting to it, and that is the important part.  I want to be able to have my students construct their own meanings and understandings of the information that is provided to them and put it to good use.  Memorizing something over and over and repeating it back is not going to give students a chance to learn, they need to come up with their own meanings and put the data to use and that way they can think about what they have learned and how it applies to them as an individual.