EDIM 513 Week 5_Thoughts On Inquiry After Week 5

These past few weeks were like the icing on the cake. The course so far has built a great foundation for learning what inquiry is and why it is important. Now we have added how it can be used to engage and enhance student learning through questioning, facts / concepts, and technology tools. I am left wondering what is next?

Reflecting a bit more on the past two weeks, the course itself demonstrated student (me) - teacher sharing practices. The resources may have been provided for me to learn and find new things, but the opportunity to grasp those concepts and apply them to my own content area was all on me. I am enjoying the fact that we are building our own inquiry units that we can actually use within our classes that we teach. The requirements have not been restricting to the point that I am doing more for the grad course than actually helping myself and in turn my students. I have not found this too often with a content area like mine and the projects that have been assigned throughout my time within this masters program. It is refreshing.

Through our readings and reflection, I have realized that this is part of inquiry. In my understanding so far of inquiry, it doesn't matter so much of how you arrive upon your understanding and conclusion, just that you actually arrive with an understanding of the journey you have taken and why or why it was not beneficial in learning the content. I have also realized through experience that it can be frustrating to grasp this concept, especially for students who are extremely fixated on the importance of the numeric grade they achieve. I have a very hard time explaining that enjoying and reflecting upon an experience allows the good grades to come naturally.

I only have one burning question that I posted in week one and has not yet been answered in my learning. This question deals with the amount of time large inquiry lessons take / the lack of time provided for the year. Leaving me wondering how teachers and a district balance the time it takes to achieve what the states are now assessing their teachers on with the lack of time that we have to cover the amount of material that we need to? I think I may post this to the discussion board of the class soon to see others opinions.