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Addendum
Inquiry-based learning
Inquiry-based learning focuses on crafting
questions that encourage participants
to connect new information to existing
knowledge. It broadly follows the steps in
the scientific method:
1.
Gathering initial information and
finding a question about that
information
2.
Forming a hypothesis
3.
Exploring the idea (experiment,
observation, reasoning, modeling, etc.)
4.
Evaluating the hypothesis in light of
the exploration and generating new
questions
5.
Repeating the cycle starting with new
questions
An example of inquiry-based facilitation
would be bringing participants to a fence line
and asking, “What do you notice about the
different sides of the fence?”
•
They may first note more grasses
on one side, or bare ground on the
other. This is a form of gathering initial
information (1).
The next question could be, “Based on what
you know about this environment, why do you
think this is different?”
•
Participants may begin to speculate
about land management history. This is
forming a hypothesis (2).
The next question might be, “How could we
find out the information you need to evaluate
your hypotheses?”
•
Participants can suggest any manner
of things — asking the landowner,
searching records, testing the soil, etc.
This is gathering information (3).
The next questions could be, “Given what
we learned, what do you conclude about
why there are differences on each side of the
fence?” and “What impacts do you think that
this management has on soil health?” This is
evaluating (4) and creating new questions (5).
Contrast the time and amount of mental
energy, speaking, and brainstorming that
occurs with the inquiry based method
compared to a facilitator taking participants
to a fence line and saying, “on this side of the
fence, there is intensive rotational grazing,
and on that side of the fence is continuous
grazing.” While the end point may be the
same, the latter method did not connect the
new information with existing information and
was passive, both of which have been shown
to lead to poorer learning outcomes than
active learning activities.