We All need a Teaching Philosophy!

Experiences or connections with the adjoining atmosphere play a big role in how a learner constructs meaning from a task (teachnology.com, 2018). Inquiry creates an experience where learning is focused on triggering curiosity in the learners. (Wolpert-Gawron, 2016). Cooperative learning as an experience involves students working on a task collectively. (Barron, et al, 2008). While both have an independent identity and can be used separately, one can also combine them. Here I am taking three examples to illustrate my way of using these strategies, one of each and the third is combined.

Inquiry Learning

Teaching any concept can involve in it questions such as ‘what do you think?’, ‘how do you know?’ or ‘why do you think this was created?’ For example, to teach linear equations, I might ask the class ‘why do you think we transpose all constants and variables to either side of the equation’? or ‘what would you do if there was a constant on both sides of the equation’? The teacher acts as a facilitator and the student comes to the conclusions on their own through the questioning (teachnology.com, 2018). Students can also “…develop a problem statement that requires them to pitch their question…” (Wolpert-Gawron, 2016).

Probing questions keeps the minds working as students learn to evaluate what they are learning instead of just imbibing mindlessly. This would keep students thinking. however, since the set-up is whole group and teacher directed, not everyone is engaged. In a large class, there would be some students who would slip into their own world. Skills and knowledge of the teachers is another challenge (Barron et al, 2008). Not every teacher is capable of the dialogue way of teaching that includes probing questions. Teachers would need support for the same.

Cooperative Learning

Stduents are divided into groups of 4 and they sit face to face. They have a worksheet between them with problems ranging from easy to hard. They discuss the problems and what each needs and solve them. The bright students help the weak ones. The language strong students help the others to grasp the word problems. The teacher moves from group to group observing, engaging and giving feedback. The chief role of the teacher would be to guide the process by asking thinking questions. (Barron et al, 2008).

The advantages are that students find each other’s’ support during the work. As people learn by observing others (Zhou and Brown, 2015), the students can be a model for each other in the group. This is also helpful as a remedial work practice. The class moves from being teacher centric to student centric. Here, students are exposed to sources and the ability to interact with other students (teachnology.com, 2018).

The disadvantages can be students being unfriendly to each other copying from each other. This can be handled by moving them to do individual work post a session of group work or an individual assessment to ascertain the learning.

As I wrote above, both the strategies can be brought together and one can have a session on inquiry based learning in the setting of collaboration.

Inquiry with Cooperative Learning

Students are handed a clear set of instructions with the rubric. They work in pairs or a group to inquire into the topic given. They can use the web support or library. They have a set of questions such as, for example for learning about pi, ‘what is pi?’, ‘who invented it?’ and ‘why was it invented?’ There could also be space for student questions that come up through their investigation. Hence the class is flipped with students working with the partner on the tasks. The task could be a complex task resulting in a presentation (Barron et al, 2008) or a simple one. But the space is that of students working with a partner and using open source material to investigate.

The goal here is broader than development of content knowledge (Barron et al, 2008). Hence the advantages are many. Flipped learning helps students to be self-sufficient and they learn much more than what they would in a whole class. Their learning also takes its own path and pace which is more fulfilling to them.

The issues can be technical glitches, students going off-track, distractions and conceptual difficulties. This can be tackled by giving a clear rubric for assessment, time line and continuous engagement with the pairs by the teacher during the work to ensure a quality progress. Behaviour might be an issue from some students. As human behaviour is affected by environmental influences (Zhou & Brown, 2015), the presence of group members can act as a regulatory feature.

Conclusion

The best learning experiences are created through conversation. Both inquiry learning and cooperative learning allow that to take place. Conversation is a space of safety allows everyone to express themselves and classroom becomes inclusive. But to have that happen, teachers need to work on themselves too. As (Wolpert-Gawron, 2016, para.9) says, “You have to bring that “whaaa?!” into your classroom. You have to model your own curiosity quotient—that hunger to learn that defines how we advance our knowledge of the world”.