This site provides a summary of a workshop on teaching the art of inquiry. The material presented here is an expanded version of the overheads used in the workshop.
Inquiry, as a particular approach to learning, is fostered in several programmes at McMaster. The Engineering and Society Programme, for example, uses the learning and practice of inquiry as a central aim in three of its seven core courses. Over the past six years the instructors of the first course in the programme, Inquiry in an Engineering Context I--Sustainable Society, have tried several approaches to teaching this art. This workshop is an attempt to share some of the things we have learned. The main focus will be on the demonstration of an approach that was developed in the summer of 1997 through a grant from the University Committee on Teaching and Learning.
Before getting into the "hands-on" portion of the workshop, a few words are said about our understanding of what inquiry IS and what it IS NOT. Links are provided to the overheads used to explain both of these points.
The main activity of the workshop was the doing of a "guided" inquiry. (You can reach this through section 4 or by the link at the bottom of each page.) This guided inquiry is used to illustrate the overall process and to demonstrate one of the things done in the context of a level 2 course to teach inquiry. Other activities in this course are included in section 4 below.
The last section, section 5, mentions a few ways we foster and develop inquiry beyond level 2.
The other major link at the bottom of most pages is the "inquiry diagram". This page provides a pictorial representation of the whole inquiry process.