Your initial blog post is an introductory post (approx. 250 words) describing your teaching/professional context and your current understanding of inquiry learning. In your final post for Module 1 you will reflect back on how your understanding has changed over the period of your search.
In your initial blog post you will:
Give a brief description of your current teaching/professional context and/or your professional learning interests.
Describe what you want to know about inquiry learning in your context.
Pose three research questions based on what you want to know. The research questions must be posed as questions, not general statements or topics. They should be ‘searchable’. i.e. they need to contain key terms/phrases that you will be able to find information on from the professional and scholarly literature.
Make these questions clearly visible in the post.
Here’s an example from a past student, who has done a great job introducing her inquiry.
I can’t think of any questions to ask!
That’s ok. My suggestion – start with Google!
Try doing some general searches first on inquiry learning, and then add synonyms, related terms and alternative spellings (inquiry vs enquiry is an obvious one to begin).
Try narrowing the search to particular subject areas e.g. history, science, geography
Try narrowing the search to the age group you teach e.g. lower primary, secondary, higher education. Use synonyms and related terms such as elementary, high school, middle school, Year 12 etc.
From the information you have found, you should have generated some leads to follow. What have you read that has intrigued you? What do you want to learn more about? These are the topics that should inspire your three re-searchable questions.
Later, you will be choosing one of these questions as your primary focus for Assignment One, so make sure they are engaging and exciting to you!
After your initial blog post, you will need to begin developing your expert searching strategies; so move on to Expert Searching!
