Inquiry Learning Running Out of Time
REFERENCES
The ‘new’ Australian Curriculum has seven General Capabilities and three Cross-Curriculum Priorities and none of them refer to Inquiry Based Learning. This leads you to believe that an Inquiry Based or constructivist model is not something that the curriculum supports or is written for. However, if you delve further into the Curriculum, you will find that it is more a case of interweaving the constructivist approach across all Learning Areas and amongst learning continuua and content descriptors. As McIlvenny (2013) states in her journal article, “My initial disappointment, therefore, turned to guarded optimism that what we have been championing for years had finally found a legitimate voice in the national curriculum (albeit scattered throughout learning areas and crosscurricular contexts). While they may not be ‘packaged’ as inquiry learning skills, these competencies are most definitely present.”
So salutations to our prototype national curriculum. We can all be assured that a model of inquiry learning is supported throughout the Curriculum and know that, “In the classroom Inquiry Learning means student-centred hands-on activities, which relate to real life situations and events. Inquiry Learning not only encourages students to actively construct their own knowledge and bring personal ideas and concepts to the learning experience, but encourages them to make changes in their attitudes and behaviours (Kuhlthau, Maniotes, & Caspari, 2007). The various scatterings of inquiry based learning throughout the Australian Curriculum does not sound like enough to allow teachers to do this in their classrooms on a daily basis? The Overview on the Australian Curriculum website states, “The Australian Curriculum sets consistent high standards for what all young Australians should learn as they progress through schooling. It prepares Australia’s next generation for the future and lays the building blocks for generations to come. The Australian curriculum focuses on learning area content and achievement standards that describe what students will learn and teachers will teach.” This does not sound like the words you would hope to hear when encouraging a learning model which incorporates a constructivist approach, “in which students have ownership of their learning”.
Teachers and Principals are the managers of the curriculum in real terms, in busy classrooms. The Australian Primary Principal’s Association website has information on it in regard to a Submission to the Australian Government Review of the Australian Curriculum which was submitted on 5 March this year. It states, “The document identifies major issues requiring attention in any review process potentially leading to revision of the curriculum. The principal issue highlighted is the overcrowding of the curriculum which imposes unrealistic expectations regarding what can be covered in the primary school year and stretches the expertise of teachers.” When I went to the submission page and put in Control + f and typed in overcrowding, there was 8 instances just on the first page. This is a common discussion around staff rooms and schools. Are we trying to feed too much content to our students at the risk of losing their interest as we simply don’t have time to go with Inquiry based models? Most website or journals I have read in regard to inquiry based learning models, project based learning models or constructivist models mostly talk of activities that start with the student generating the ideas and genres. They then go at the students’ pace and in the direction the students’ take it. The truth is they remind me of the 60’s - peace and love etc because unfortunately many classrooms we teach in do not look like that.
That is without any Religion taught by Christian, Catholic and other denominational schools, values or social and emotional learning curriculum, meditation time, whole school or part school celebrations and the myriad of other usually healthy distractions that come a teachers way.
The latest edition of Education Today (2014 Vol 14 (3) Term 3) contains an article entitled, “For students of the national curriculum, history never repeats”. The article talks about the fact that for so many years History as a subject has not been stand-alone and the fact that it was one of the four first subjects to be chosen to be included in the Australian Curriculum was heralded widely amongst History teachers and notables. The article then goes on to raise concerns, “For many educators, especially in the primary sector, this rang alarm bells – the “crowded curriculum” is a very real concern and mandating the teaching of history as a discrete subject would only increase pressure on teachers.” The Australian Curriculum is very content laden. The Australian Primary Principals’s Association in its submission states, “It is our view that the subsequent additions of subject areas have not addressed the implications for content volume.”
The Australian Curriculum in its current form is therefore a threat to pedagogical models that base themselves on inquiry and being student-centred. Inquiry based learning is, “ It starts with exploration and questioning and leads to investigation into a worthy question, issue, problem or idea. It involves asking questions, gathering and analysing information, generating solutions, making decisions, justifying conclusions and taking action.” On his blog, Khalil Gibran says, “Pedagogy is defined as “any conscious activity by one person designed to enhance learning in another” (Watkins & Mortimer, 1999, p. 3). Inquiry pedagogy therefore, is based around a set of teaching and learning strategies that involve student-centred research and investigation that encourages metacognitive thought processes, discussion and collaboration.
It seems the purpose of the Australian Curriculum is to compete with the world ‘market’ by producing content laden individuals. Unfortunately, having content and knowledge is not necessarily enough to be a learner or most importantly, a grounded, wholly developed person. Carroll defines Inquiry Pedagogy as an understanding about society and its interactions that "requires us to seek out knowledge as well as apply historical skills to determine why events occurred and what motivated the people to take the action they took" (2012). That sounds like a model that will produce a learner and holistic personality.
REFERENCES
Appa.asn.au,. (2014). APPA ~ Submissions. Retrieved 2 September 2014, from http://appa.asn.au/submissions.php
Appa.asn.au,. (2014). Retrieved 5 September 2014, from http://appa.asn.au/submissions/Review-of-Australian-curriculum.pdf
Galileo Educational Network,. (2014). What Is Inquiry?. Retrieved 6 September 2014, from http://galileo.org/teachers/designing-learning/articles/what-is-inquiry/
Inquiringmind.co.nz,. (2014). What is Inquiry?. Retrieved 7 September 2014, from http://www.inquiringmind.co.nz/WhatIsInquiry.htm
Retrieved: 3 September 2014 http://search.informit.com.au/
Kuhlthau, C., Maniotes, L., & Caspari, A. (2007). Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st Century. London: Libraries Unlimited
Minnisjournals.com.au,. (2014). For students of the national curriculum, history never repeats - Education Today. Retrieved 7 September 2014, from http://www.minnisjournals.com.au/educationtoday/article/For-students-of-the-national-curriculum-435
The Australian Curriculum v7.1. (2010).Retrieved September 5, 2014, from http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/.
Watkins, C. and Mortimer, P. (1999). Pedagogy: what do we know? In P. Mortimer (Ed), Understanding Pedagogy and its Impact on Learning, (pp. 20-45). London: Paul Chapman Publishing Ltd.
21st Century HSIE,. (2014). Inquiry Pedagogy. Retrieved 3 September 2014, from http://21stcenturyhsie.weebly.com/inquiry-pedagogy.html
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