Working in a school that has already started to implement inquiry learning, I thought I would already have a reasonable understanding of most concepts included in this unit. I felt somewhat like a student being surprised by new information regularly, or finding out where the theories came from rather than just implementing them in my classroom.
In assignment 1, my biggest struggle was creating a website and an infographic as both these things were completely new to me and they felt overwhelming. I am thankful I pushed myself and made it through as operating and adding to my website became slightly easier during assignment 2.
During assignment 2, I was able to use an unit that I was already writing for school which made life slightly easier on the time management side of things. I found that I struggled to understand Lupton’s GeSTE model for quite some time, and even now don’t feel that I have grasped enough to be confident in my understanding of it. This is something I would like to continue learning about as I continue my own inquiry journey.
As I am currently in the process of implementing the unit in my classroom, I am finding there are many places where I could still improve this unit and I will be sure to reflect at the end of the unit and ask for student feedback to help plan for the future.
Questions I still have include:
- How can I develop engaging inquiry units of work for students whilst still addressing the curriculum and student interests?
- What is the best way to assess student learning when completing free or open inquiries?
- How can I successfully run inquiries in my classroom with some students ready for open inquiries whilst others still need structured or controlled level inquiries?
- How can I use the GeSTE in other inquiry units?
Inquiry Learning Journey 