What Student Teaching Taught Me about Inquiry Based Learning

Creating a classroom culture that is conducive to inquiry based learning takes a lot of work.  In the end, the goal is to have the teacher do less, allowing the students to do more.  In order to create this culture, trust is key.  Students must trust the teacher to facilitate their learning and guide them toward the next right step.  Teachers must trust the students to take the learning into their own hands.  Relinquishing control in the classroom is a difficult task.

This was evident to me this school year, as I took on a student teacher.  College provided her with background knowledge, and student teaching was the time to sink or swim.  I gave her a few texts that I wanted to familiarize herself with prior to taking over any lessons.  When the time came to take over lessons, it was a slow process.  She observed me and asked questions.  Her questions told me that she was highly reflective.  We discussed what went well and what could’ve been done differently.  When she started taking over, I stayed out of her way.  I knew she needed to either feel successful teaching or feel what it feels like to tank.  We discussed how to tell how successful a lesson is and how to use formative assessments to guide instruction and set the speed limit for the lesson.

Student teaching is like the ultimate inquiry based learning experience.  There is a lot of trial and error; there is facilitated learning; there are many opportunities for reflection and improvement; and there is an authentic audience throughout the entire semester.

So how can we model the K-12 classroom environment in the same way?  There needs to be quite an investment in teachers.  Let’s remember student teaching is an experience that is 1 mentor teacher to 1 student teacher.  It requires prep work to make cross-curricular connections.  Lessons cannot be the same year to year, as lessons will vary greatly depending on the particular students in the class, their interests, and their passions.  

We know that students are better equipped to take on real-world problems with process skills rather than only content knowledge.  We need to give our students opportunities to learn process skills, rather than handing them content knowledge on a silver platter.  It’s time to teach our students how to fish.  The inquiry based classroom does just that.