Investigating Facts, Concepts, and Questioning Techniques – IBL Week 4

What I learned this week is Inquiry Based Learning is all about questions. Sounds simple enough, but when you are forced to look at overarching concepts and the facts that support them, you need to figure out how to ask the right question to get the “right” answer. I am not just speaking of a fact-based question that requires mere recall. More appropriately, I speak of a question that motivates the student to think beyond the facts, to use the facts, to investigate a possible solution.

Before approaching a concept with students, it is very important to take in consideration what they know and what they do not know, essentially their background knowledge. Students come into the classroom with their own set of facts about a particular concept. It is our job to find out exactly where we need to take them.

Discerning between fact and concept was a challenging assignment this week. There was no discussion prior to the activity to see if I understood what each was, and had there been, I would have felt confident that I knew. As I began to make decisions about each statement, I began to second-guess my initial response and continued to waver throughout the list of facts and concepts. I realized through the assignment how important it is have students discuss what they think and know about a concept before throwing them into an activity. The reason is two-fold: the teacher can find out valuable information, such as misconceptions students might have, or facts they already know; students that have little knowledge of the topic listen to what their peers are saying and can begin to make connections.

As I think about my own questioning techniques, I realize I do ask questions that require more recall than critical thinking processes. I need to be more aware of developing more investigable questions than non-investigable. The better I become, the better my students will become in discriminating between them, as well, and will begin to ask questions that get them thinking deeper about a topic.

My biggest concern at this point of the course is how do I get the unmotivated student to ask the questions, to want to participate in the IBL process? My own response seems to be, “get them motivated.” That is the answer everyone gives, but we all know that is easier to say than to do in some cases. Will the IBL process alone be enough to motivate the unmotivated?