Initial Thoughts
Before now I have had what I would consider surprisingly little interaction with Inquiry Based Learning within the classroom. Being an arts teacher, inquiry learning is not a teaching or learning style that has been presented with much emphasis. Despite the fact that arts based education and Inquiry Based Learning bear remarkable similarities. I honestly do not know why it has been thus neglected, especially when I communicate with the Humanities department who have been basing their classroom practice on IBL for a number of years. My current role within the classroom is the schools Media and Film and Television teacher and subject coordinator. However, I am also a senior teacher of: Drama, Visual Art, Photography and English. Essentially, I love the arts, literature, education and learning (yes they are different). From my first foray into the nature of IBL, I initially discovered that it is highly relevant and would be incredibly beneficial within an arts classroom, so why haven’t we been using it? Or, more importantly, why haven’t we been aligning our arts based education with IBL from the inception of the arts curriculum?
Why at the very least is it not integrated into drama, visual art, music dance or media? This first burning question in mind I launched into my exploration of Inquiry Learning from a pedagogical and curriculum design perspective. I am determined and have made it my mission this semester to integrate the methods more intrinsically into my classroom practice, particularly within the context of Film, Media and Drama.
When I first touched on this unit, I was eager to apply the methods of IBL to my own Inquiry based practice and develop my own research cycle where I explored the Wander Society. The wander society expounds the idea that all of our consumer driven malaise can be thwarted with the regular act of wandering, questioning, exploring and documenting our findings. I was then gently nudged into the right direction by Mandy Lupton, her assuring me that I was completely off track. We were in fact inquiring about the process itself and deconstructing the methodology in the context of the curriculum. Slightly deflated, and even more overwhelmed, I went back to my drawing board and kept reading. In the end, I found that Whitman was on to something. Solvitur Ambulando, or all is solved by wandering,
I realised eventually, through more exploration on the topic of Inquiry Based Learning. That the Wander Society could still guide my explorations and learning about the methods and the cycle of learning. This is what I have postulated so far, the act of wandering, as I understand it, is the physical manifestation of Inquiry Based Learning. IBL separates itself from the more traditional means of TWS; through a more focused exploration of the topics of information, using a specific methodology or process known as a cycle. With IBL we are searching and becoming information literate from our chairs and our minds, within TWS we are exploring with our feet, bodies and minds. Within both frameworks, there are a set of specific rules to guide our research, it is these frameworks that we will use to guide the following blog and exploration into the world of Inquiry Based Learning within arts education. When I did eventually get my head around the cycle in its basic form. It was through a social media search on Pinterest , I’m a very visual person. With this first search I came across a number of highly informative and helpful infographics, articles and images. Since then I have been collecting and sorting as much relevant information and images/ templates that I could get my hands on.
My first wander or exploration into the world of Inquiry Based Learning on Google threatened to overwhelm me, most of the information was in relation to science/ math or history, I struggled to find the relevance to my practice beyond my future role within the library. Even with (what I thought was) a fairly comprehensive grasp of search tools; every link and the recommended readings appeared to point towards other Key Learning Areas, and not my own. To this date I have found very few documents, one or two that provided examples of and a structure for Inquiry Based Learning implementation within the arts. It would appear that I had identified a large, if not massive gap in the resource development. A gap that admittedly intrigued me, why was there still so little information to be found that encompassed the arts? The style of Inquiry Based Learning is something that all arts subjects could benefit from aligning more with. Particularly during the formation/ planning and research phase that guides every project. I did realise that the process has been utilised by a number of Arts teachers within the research or planning phase of the units. With a push from the department behind the explicit teaching cycle. The nitty gritty phases of the IBL cycle have been neglected and certainly are not purposefully implemented with much awareness, minimising their overall effectiveness.
This initial journey of my own inquiry into the process and cycle of Inquiry Based Learning, has left me with a number of questions to guide the next chapter of my search. First, as I already mentioned, why is there such a gap within the arts and Inquiry Based Learning? Secondly, where can I really implement the cycle into my own classroom practice and how can I do so within all of the KLA’s I teach? Thirdly, how can I work to make my questions an artform by the end of the semester? This first week will see me collating what I have already researched into my searching posts, as well as trying to answer the question of what approach I intend to take with the upcoming unit. What I do already know is that I have raced ahead with my research a bit at the beginning, and now have to curate, refine and abstract the documents that I have already found valuable. I must also document and refine my burgeoning expert search processes with a more critical and aware eye, ever using my Wanderers mindset.
1. Why isn’t IBL integrated with the arts more?
2. Why at the very least is it not integrated into drama, visual art, music dance or media?
3. Is Inquiry Based Learning the same as Creative Based Inquiry?