The coronavirus pandemic has revealed the fragility of education. It has a profound impact on teaching wherein the instructions need to be quickly shifted to remote teaching. With this, inquiry-based learning is considered in its most comprehensive form. However, it was criticized because it takes a lot of planning before implementation.
Accordingly, inquiry-based learning can improve student engagement by encouraging them for a meaningful participation and engagement. The kind of instruction that should be given to the students can engage them more emotionally, behaviorally, and intellectually in their own learning which is appropriate in creating a positive school community learning environment. In a distance learning approach, teachers have fewer chances to watch their students do their tasks. There is a tendency for fewer opportunities to correct their inaccuracies or misconceptions and fewer chances to guide their skill development and learning. However, there are many ways or strategies to find out what the students have already learned if inquiry lessons are included. By observing the students’ outputs, teachers can be able to assess where their students are in their learning and can discover more ways to put that learning into context. Developing mastery and construction of solutions may take more time but can deepen understanding of a concept.
To generate a solution, doing some steps such as asking questions and steering, guiding learners in designing methods and interpreting data are necessary, so that they would be encouraged to learn in a manner where they make use of their cognitive and critical thinking skills. Teachers could be able to see how students work accordingly through problem-solving during inquiry lessons. Once the students solve their own problems, they can internalize conceptual processes. Learners can now easily determine which pieces of information are useful for them and how this information applies to their real world.
By: Angielyn B. Dominguez | Teacher I | Cataning Elementary School
