Inquiry In Action

     The past two weeks we have been delving into inquiry based instruction and this week in lab we had the opportunity to teach an inquiry based lesson. I choose to teach a lesson on soil classification, where I  provided groups of students with soil samples and they were to determine the classification of each sample. I was pretty sure this was inquiry but I could see it going the other way quickly.
 
     Normally right before I teach in lab I become extremely nervous, but this week I was rather calm. I knew that this wasn't going to be a good job or awesome sort of lab. It wouldn't be because I wasn't ready or didn't plan, but inquiry is tough and seasoned educators struggle with this concept. I knew that I wasn't going to get it in 2 short weeks and that was ok, because at least I was trying.

     Overall lab went fairly smooth just a little messy at times. I quickly began to see the divide between the  knowledge base, my one group of students analyzed the soil once and had the correct answers, wheres my other group truly had to inquire and seek out the correct answers along the way. Thus began the probing questions, I had scripted questions prior to lab but they suddenly seemed so trivial and did not seem to invoke the critical thinking that I thought they might. Questioning is something that I constantly struggle with and it was exemplified in the inquiry lesson today.

    As a pre- service teacher it is terrifying to not have everything scripted out, with inquiry I didn't know exactly what I would say because I dint know what my learners would do, say, ask, or inquire about. I think my biggest pondering left about inquiry is how to take the "what"  that you want students to get out of a lesson and actually guide them to get it, but that will come with time aka years or maybe a lifetime.

    This was our last teaching lab and I can certainly see the improvements I have made just in this short amount of time. I am not only learning how to teach but lab is helping me to be more critical and reflective about my teaching and the experiences I have encountered.