“Tell me and I forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” – Benjamin Franklin
Ben Franklin said this almost two centuries ago, and we’re still stuck with educational practices that haven’t changed noticeably from the time when he was in school. Learning, to a large extent, is still based off teachers having the sole voices in the classroom; it is thought of as a one-way street, where children passively receive what has been offered to them. In this context, it is high time we look to Inquiry Based Learning (IBL) to improve our classrooms and schools. IBL is a method that poses questions or problems to students and allows students to come up with answers or solutions on their own, motivated by their own curiosity and inquisitiveness about the subject at hand.
As teachers, we come across various instances every day when we can involve the students in the class in numerous ways. Even the most seemingly mundane and theoretical of concepts can be made interactive. For example, you’d think that the water cycle has to be taught through lectures or at best made interactive with the visual aid. When you implement IBL, though, you’re open to venturing into new avenues; You could put a glass of cold water on the table, ask the students why they think there are water droplets on its surface, and get them to arrive at how condensation works. From there, it becomes easier to teach the workings of the water cycle, and it truly makes the students apply what they’ve learned. That is the power that IBL brings to students- they become invested in the learning process, and find themselves with the agency, which is the best way to create involvement.
Why Do We Need IBL?
IBL in a school classroom will prove to be extremely effective, especially in the Indian scenario, because it will better prepare the students for higher education. Many colleges in India are research-driven, and research, essentially, is inquiry based learning in its truest sense. However, many schools do not include IBL simply because they are examination-driven and follow a strict curriculum. Curriculum building is also driven by a belief that schools have a duty to drill in “basics” in their students by the end of their schooling. This is passed off as preparation for university, but what happens is that students do not really know how to apply concepts or solve problems without instructions. They know how to remember, and this is of no practical use when they must face the challenges that higher studies throw at them.
IBL In Early Learning
IBL in pre-primary classes is an effective and relatively simple method to implement. Young students should be placed in stimulating environments that encourage them to explore the world. Introducing children to education in an active manner will have long-lasting effects. They will naturally be inclined to interact with and question everything that is given to them. In fact, Ontario passed regulations to introduce IBL in all kindergarten classrooms. It will function as a fitting beginning to what can then truly be called a journey of education and exploration.
How Does IBL Work?
A good start to implementing IBL would be to split up the classroom into groups, give a problem each to each group, and let them discuss it with peers. This works especially well with modules in which experiential learning can be dangerous or uneconomical: an eleven- year- old cannot, for instance, be given free access to a Bunsen burner and a pot of water to find out where the water goes when it boils. On the other hand, they can be allowed to discuss it, to ask for facts, and even ask for the facilitator to conduct an experiment for them, in front of them. This sort of discussion-based learning is not new by any means; it is called the Socratic method and has existed, both in the West and the East, since well before the time of Socrates. Most people’s problem with it is that it is believed to work only for groups that are small, and whose members are equally voracious, well-read, and focused. The former two prerequisites would seem to rule out most young children. However, this is where the teacher/facilitator – removed from the debate, but still part of it – comes in. It is his or her duty to know his pupils well enough to group together children of the same voracity, erudition, and focus, and to be at hand to bring debate back to being debate when the topic of conversation veers from, say, what temperature water boils at, to how Newton got along with a name like that.
IBL in Maths, Science
Similarly, in mathematics, where you’d think that IBL is tough to implement, there are immense possibilities. For example, there are several ways of proving theorems, especially in geometry, but often the textbook illustrates only one, and that is often taken as a norm that must be mugged up. However, when the teacher guides the students towards attempting to prove them in any way they can find, it will result in multiple ways to arrive at the solution and will train the students to apply knowledge instead of merely remembering things.
….And Languages And Social Science
IBL has been implemented, to a very large extent, in the context of science. We need to implement it in a school classroom, and, for that, it must be extended to languages and social sciences as well. While this may seem far-fetched initially, it is actually quite an easy thing to do. Instead of telling students the historical facts of an event, the teacher can give the context, ask students to come up with possible consequences, and later discuss all the different perspectives. These answers, juxtaposed against the actual event, will enable students to critique, and better understand history. Imagine a classroom in which children are asked to place themselves in the place of different Princely States at Independence. They will all be given the contexts of their states, and asked at arrive at a decision, given the options offered to them by Mountbatten. Then, they can be told about the decisions that the Princely States actually took, and discuss their pros and cons.
Issues notwithstanding, IBL is thought of as the entryway into the brave new world of the GenZ. It is one of the first steps towards improving our classrooms, and, more importantly, it is something that every teacher, everywhere, can do, even if on their own personal scale, and be able to see concrete results.
The posited problems with IBL are manifold. There is, however, at its heart, the issue that even IBL doesn’t really “liberate” the learner into finding his own solution to a problem. You offer a question, expect him to solve it a certain way, and, with that in mind, provide him with certain implements; what if his original solution is entirely different from the one you imagined, and your “implements” are, in fact, slowing down, rather than facilitating, his learning? In addition, most of the scenarios – especially in science-related learning – tend to be less than commonsensical. There is an apocryphal story, variously attributed to everyone from Einstein to Niels Bohr to even Newton, in which the youthful scientist is offered a pendulum’s bob, and told to find the length of the building. He writes in his answer that he would remove the bob from the pendulum, walk up to the janitor of the building, and offer him the bob in return for finding out just how high the building is. it functions as a joke, of course, but also serves to illustrate how alienated from the real-world learning and education can be