Inquiry Based Instruction Reflection

In this video and post, I'm excited to share a bit more about the concept of Inquiry Based Instruction! Inquiry Based Instruction is designed to help students gain skills in problem-solving and innovation that will translate into career readiness skills for success in a modern workforce that requires successful employees to be much more independent and intrinsically motivated than ever before. Learners are naturally more motivated when they have real questions and interest in the topic at hand, and Inquiry Based approaches to instruction aim to capitalize on their natural sense of curiosity.

Although I unfortunately had to miss our Ag Inquiry Institute led by Mrs. Krista Pontius and Mrs. Sherisa Nailor, I still have to been able to gain valuable insight into designing and delivering Inquiry Based Instruction by reading Inquiry and Innovation in the Classroom by A.J. Juliani. In the book, he discusses the ways our education system as a whole has failed to shift and adapt to the changing demands of our world. He uses Google's 20% time concept (where employees are encouraged to use 20% of their work time towards a project/initiative of interest to them that is separate from their assigned work tasks/responsibilities) as an example for engaging students in a similar practice in the classroom. While this is challenging and requires educators to make a serious commitment to shifting their approach, I believe there is potential for great outcomes when students are placed in the driver's seat of their learning process.

In the video, I discuss how I plan to implement Inquiry Based Instruction into the Agricultural Mechanics II course I will teach at Athens Area High School this upcoming year. I will teach a unit on Precision Agriculture and plan to allow the four students in the class to conduct Inquiry Projects of their choice as the overall assessment for the unit. I will meet the students in conferences at least twice throughout the unit to discuss their project and offer any necessary support, but each student will guide their individual project and follow their own line of inquiry so long as it relates in some way to precision agriculture. I envision this taking the form of research/learning projects, work on a personal piece of equipment/machinery, talking with local farmers about their use of precision agriculture...but it likely may be something completely new that I have not even thought of (which is exciting!). Most all of the students in this class have a greater knowledge of agricultural mechanics than what I do, so I truly believe this small class setting of upperclassmen will be a great environment to engage students in Inquiry Based learning.

If you are interested in seeing a more thorough description of my Inquiry Project, feel free to check out the link below:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10pYfTyjKnDAq98TBccL_MEiLxeoVkE6qxyQPpbxTdkg/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks for watching and reading... I will look forward to sharing more in the weeks to come!