Put on your Thinking Cap!

Have you ever been in a class where all the teacher does is lecture and have you memorize facts? I sure have! How boring! Speaking from personal experience, after a while I completely zoned out and didn't absorb anything of relevance. It's just human nature! Well, this is what many students are still experiencing today. This is why teachers need to keep up with the current trends and models of keeping students engaged in the classroom.
There are many teaching strategies that teachers can begin to incorporate into their daily lessons. Often enough, many teachers resort to the Behavioral Model because it involves the teacher talking and the students memorizing. It is the easiest model for many teachers, and this is what they are used to. The Inquiry Based Learning approach is the total opposite from what has been going on in traditional classrooms for years. Inquiry learning is a seeking for truth, information, and knowledge. Students seek information by questioning. With inquiry, students are able to find out more about a certain topic that interests them, rather than have to research something "just because the teacher said to." The inquiry process begins with gathering information and data by using the five senses. In a traditional classsroom, the most important goal was to have students memorize facts and data. With Inquiry Based Learning, students are understanding how to get and make sense of data, which is a life long skill. I read on one website that traditional learning focuses more on learning about things, while inquiry learning focuses more on learning things. This is so very true once you think about it. Inquiry enables students to develop useful problem-solving skills, as well as develop habits of mind that will be carried with them to guide learning and creative thinking.
The 5E Lesson Design is aligned with inquiry because students are exploring new ideas on a certain subject, in this case science. The teacher begins by engaging the students in order to capture their interest. Next, the students begin to explore. In this stage, students get directly involved with materials and activities. Students work together collaboratively, which enables them to share and communicate and the teacher acts as the facilitator. In the explanation stage, the student begins to put the abstract experience into a communicable form.
Communication occurs between everyone (peers, facilitator, learner himself). In further stages, students expand on concepts they have learned, make connections to other concepts, and apply their understandings to the world around them. This is what true inquiry is all about. If I were a principal in a school, I would definitely encourage my teachers to use this model in their classrooms because I want to see students make meaning of something that is real to them. This model allows students to go beyond their comfort zone and actually demonstrate a solid understanding of the concepts learned. This is what is going to make our future citizens critical thinkers and problem solvers.