Inquiry-Based Learning Using Everyday Objects

Book excerpt: Student inquiry is an active learning process that allows students to investigate central, essential questions linked to curriculum standards and specific teaching objectives. Essential questions maybe created by the teacher or by the students, but when this guided inquiry process is enhanced by the use of everyday objects (seashells, feathers, flowers, rocks, etc) teachers can cover required concepts while simultaneously honouring student curiosity and encouraging students to become more observant, inquisitive, and reflective. Amy Edmonds Alvarado and Patricia R Herr provide lively and practical guidance to help teachers engage students in object-based inquiry along with sample lessons in language arts, science, social studies, and math. These user-friendly sample lessons are structured to increase both teacher and student success with the process, and tips are provided on how to adjust lessons along a continuum from traditionally structured to more student-initiated. This volume is intended as a stimulus for change in both teaching and thinking, and offers object-based inquiry as a tool for teachers to add to their existing repertoire of teaching strategies.