Learning Opportunities

When learning through inquiry, children are more engaged, learn deeply, and develop a wide range of competencies. How do teachers create an environment where children learn to explore, investigate, and wonder? How can we promote developmentally appropriate problem-solving activities that focus on critical thinking and go beyond the surface of topics? This interactive session will explore resources and practical ideas for beginning conversations about how to:

• plan inquiry-based learning opportunities
• invite children to engage in inquiry
• scaffold learning as students proceed during an inquiry
• combine open inquiry and guided inquiry
• use, adapt and extend learning opportunities.

Come investigate resources and strategies that facilitate inquiry learning, and learn how to design learning opportunities that foster imagination, reflection and personal discipline -21^st century skills!

Connections to Competencies:

• Highlight literacy, with communication and collaboration playing a major role
• Engage in Critical Thinking –analyze, synthesize, and evaluate literature to construct knowledge
• Create opportunities through play, imagination, reflection and negotiation

The research strategies explored in this session are derived from Sue Jackson, Garfield Gini-Newman and the Buck Institute for Education