Inquiry Based Learning

The Emerging importance of Inquiry Based Learning: Changing the Way We Look at
Approaches to Information Literacy and Libraries in the 21st Century

What Grabs Me:

-incredibly unique and valuable approach to learning
-built on basic principles of constructivist ideology

Constructivist Theories of Education:

-seizes upon what appears important to the learner
-emphasizes thinking about thinking processes using what's important to the learner
-beginnings of inquiry appear formless and gradually become structured as understanding
evolves

Constructivism Differs from Traditional Ideas About Teaching:

-the focus shifts from the teacher to the students
-teacher needs to become an expert at asking good questions, drawing out good
questions from learners, as well as teaching them how to construct good questions
-knowledge becomes viewed as a dynamic, ever changing view of the world we live in
and the ability to successfully stretch and explore that view

About Inquiry Based Learning:

-a way to make sense of the world through inquiry
-inquiry needs to be linked to context

What’s the Situation in School Libraries?:

- nearly infinite possibilities to explore
-how can libraries work on a consensus on what's to be explored

Benefits of Inquiry Based Learning:

- inquiry based learning is the most impartial approach
- owing to being a larger rationale and thereby containing both approaches.

Inquiry Based Learning as an Equalizer for Learners:

- is couched in creating the learning community’s potential for opportunity, freedom, and
the expectation of earning a substantial income equally

Jerome Bruner:
- observed that almost any topic, if explored appropriately, can be learned at any school
age.
- he underpins, especially for libraries, the need to create conventions for determining
what topics are learned, and in what sequence, so that librarians may focus attention at
developmentally appropriate approaches to information literacy

Teaching Information Literacy:

-uses vantage points from which to view learners based on the student’s “reality”
-Librarian join what students want to know and be able to do with information