105. Inquiry Based Learning or Direct Instruction?

Welcome to heart of a teacher. I taught in schools for 27 years and wanted to share some stories from my classroom. I will also be sharing the latest educational research and watch out for surprise guests!
Thank you for watching!
Dr. Jennifer Chang Wathall

Please follow me on:
Twitter: @jenniferwathall
LinkedIn: Jenniferwathall

[pragyatewari]

I completely resonate with you Jennifer that its not a binary situation. Its a complex and dynamic situation where gje teacher must be equipped with an effective tool box full.of stategies, prompts, questions, interventions. Thanx alot for sharing it Jennifer

[pragyatewari]

Direct teaching might help them apply their understanding to the real life situations but inquiry based learning will not only make the learners apply it but iconstruct meaning on their own, nnovate and create too.
Also the critical and creative thinking can be enhanced through inquiry based learning only. This is what I strongly feel.

[suzannedownes]

The ability to problem solve, to critically think and to collaborate - so important! Exams are part of life as the whole system schools/universities and sometimes even employers! are still looking at exam or standardized test results, but let's learn by developing problem solving, critical thinking, and collaboration skills as they are life skills!

[suzannedownes]

I just spoke to a NZ parent of a student yesterday. The student and I were working on multiplication using manipulatives and reasoning with related facts that we already knew and then practicing through playing a strategy game. The parent overheard part of the lesson and she suggested to practice time tables songs over the summer as she was thinking our reasoning work was not effective. The student is 13 years old, and we actually had interesting conversations including questions from the student about how an odd number multiplied by an odd number is always odd and why when we multiply an even number with any number the result is always even! I was so happy with the good questions of the student but the parent is not too sure about this. Lots of work to do for parents, sometimes I feel that is where we should start first....

[UmesShrestha]

A reasonable way to thinking about teaching approaches is to first think of the learners' level. That's my understanding after reading the book "How learning happens" Kirschner and Hendrick. Direct Instructions works better with novice learners, and Inquiry Learning works better with near-expert learners. The dichotomy should not exist at all.

[vickykennard]

Not sure that your portrayal of DI is correct. It is not necessarily about "drill and kill" but scaffolding learning

[matemagi]

As far as I know Direct instruction is not about memorizing facts.