The Idea of Inquiry

Unpacking the idea of inquiry and why it's central to the school's pedagogy

Building upon the Foundations of Learning series, in this semesters Parent Forums we will be exploring together the How of learning. Guy Claxton (2018) states: "How we teach slowly shapes the way young people respond to the unknown – to change, challenge, complexity and uncertainty….Our teaching can steer them toward becoming more positive, confident, and capable in the face of difficulty. OR it can steer them toward becoming more timid, dogmatic and insecure."  Today we dived into the IB’s core approach to learning: Inquiry. 

“The act of inquiry is critical to our learning and growth. From the moment we are born, we make sense of our world through exploring, testing and evaluating. We learn through our experiences and our desire to make sense of our experiences. We question others and we question ourselves. One only has to spend time with a four-year-old to witness the power of inquiry - be it their intense engagement in exploratory play or the barrage of questions from the back of the car!” (Murdoch, 2016).

Participants engaged in a mini-inquiry themselves, into The Story of our Name. 

Through this experience, we reflected that we had practised and grappled with the following skills, dispositions, knowledge and understandings, and that inquiry is a powerful approach to learning that is authentic, engaging, transdisciplinary and skill-building:

• Curiosity and Questioning skills
• Research skills
• Communication skills: discussion, listening, turn-taking, presenting, writing
• Social skills: Getting to know one another 
• Appreciation and Respect
• Thinking skills - making connections across disciplines: history, geography, cultural (tribes, religion), trade/economy
• Understandings: universal connections being people, humanity

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