Inquiry-Based Learning at Work

INQUIRY-BASED LEARNING AT WORK Bertram (Chip) Bruce National College of Ireland U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Presented at the Learning at Work Seminar: Practical Responses to the Future Skills Challenge National College of Ireland, 15 May, 2008

19TH-CENTURY LEARNING Solve well-deﬁned problems Read one (printed) source Follow directions Work independently Rely on ﬁxed procedures 2

WHO SAID? Innovations in transportation & communication Relaxation of social discipline & control Growing need for knowledge in all affairs of life Need for lifelong learning Transform learning & teaching

John Dewey, “The School as Social Centre,” 1902

21ST-CENTURY CHALLENGE Find problems Integrate knowledge from multiple sources & media Think critically Collaborate Learn how to learn 5

People have to adapt to the work, habits, and values of the machines. People are generally regarded as the sources of problems, while devices are considered as means to solutions ...also eliminates the opportunities of developing those human skills that are fundamentally different from the skills of machines: abilities such as listening, interpreting, instructing, and working out to mutually acceptable accommodations. But it is the skills, more than anything else, that the global village needs. –Ursula Franklin

INQUIRY CYCLE Ask Reﬂect Investigate Discuss Create

INQUIRY-BASED LEARNING Questions: arising out of experience Materials: diverse, authentic, challenging; two-way Activities: engaging. hands-on, creating, collaborating, living new roles Dialogue: listening; articulating meaning Reﬂection: from concepts to action 8

ASK Teachers saw the enormous pedagogical difference between solving problems and formulating them, between answering someone else's question and generating your own. –Schwartz, Olds, & Willie, 1980

INVESTIGATE Blogs Internet radio Online video Mobile devices Web resources Simulations Digital libraries E-learning Social networking Virtual reality Second Life Ubiquitous computing

CREATE Constructing a third space at the computer in a ﬁrst-grade classroom – Christine Wang

DISCUSS Water cooler learning privacy propinquity social designation –Anne-Laure Fayard & John Weeks, 2007

REFLECT We always live at the time we live and not at some other time, and only by extracting at each present time the full meaning of each present experience are we prepared for doing the same in the future. This is the only preparation which in the long run amounts to anything. –John Dewey, Experience & Education 13

ENGINEERS novel situations lifelong multiple learning sources budgets, experiment marketing

ACTIVITY Think about your own workplace setting (or refer to the examples from this morning, the video cases, ...) You’re a consultant. What can you do to promote learning at work? How would you encourage: Ask – Investigate – Create – Discuss – Reﬂect? What would you say to workers? to management?

Inquiry-Based Learning at Work

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