Inquiry Approach

 A student-centered method of education focused on asking questions.

 Focuses on student’s investigation and learning.
 The students are provided with opportunities to investigate a problem, search for
possible solutions, make observations, ask questions, test out ideas, and think
creatively and use their intuition.
 Teacher is a facilitator, provides guidance and supports students trough learning
process.

Inquiry teaching method DO’s and DON’Ts:

 Avoid telling the students what they “ought to know”.
 Talk to students mostly by questioning, and especially by asking divergent questions.
 Do not accept short, simple answers to questions.
 Encourage students to interact directly with one another, and avoid judging what is said
in student interactions.
 Do not summarize students’ discussion.

Steps in the Inquiry Method

1. Define the topic or introduce the topic.
2. Guide the students to plan where and how to gather data, information. They may research
on the topic/question by viewing, reading, constructing, experimenting and observation.
3. Students present findings through graphs, charts, power point presentation, models and
drawings.

Advantages of Inquiry Approach

1. Nurture student’s passions and talents
2. Empower student voice & honor student voice
3. Increase motivation and engagement
4. Faster curiosity and a love for learning
5. Teach grit, perseverance, growth mindset & self-regulation
6. Make research meaningful & develop strong research skills
7. Deepen Understanding to go beyond memorizing facts and content
8. Fortify the importance of asking good question
9. Enable students to take ownership over their own learning and to reach their goals.
10. Develops collaboration, communication and creativity
11. Gives the students the opportunity to develop stronger relationships with their classmates,
improve their communication skills and increase the confidence they have in their own ideas
and ability to contribute in the classroom.

Disadvantages
1. Time consuming.
2. As students of different mental capabilities attend the same class in the school, thus it is
not possible for all of them to learn various information’s through this method effectively.
3. If all the students do not take participate in question asking function, then the classroom will
become dominated by few students.
 Problem Based Learning
 A teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an
extended period of time to investigate and respond to an engaging and complex
question, problem, or challenge.
 Develops application synthesis, critical thinking skills.
 Students work together to solve real-world problems in their school and community.
 Teachers and students are co-learning, co-producing and co-evaluating.

IMPLEMENTATION OF PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING

Five step processes to implementation:
1. Introduce the problem
2. Self-directed learning
3. Students come together as a group and discuss the information they have found.
4. Students will put all the information together in the form of a paper, presentation, or how
the teacher prefers it to be presented.
5. The final steps where students evaluate themselves and other students and determine
what they could have done differently.

KEY TO SUCCESS
 Teachers need to make sure they are monitoring the students and help them guide in
their research.
 We need to make sure we are giving our students age appropriate problems.
 Focus on a real problem in the school or community.