This week for our EdTech class we had the pleasure of going to visit Rebecca Bathhurst-Hunt’s class and I would just like to say wow… she is teacher goals! Rebecca works at George Jay elementary in a kindergarten classroom and has a very unique way of teaching. Rebecca calls herself the Inquiry teacher and bases her teaching around sparking curiosity in her students. Inquiry based learning allows educators to use questions and provocations to get students thinking and wondering about a certain subject, topic or idea. Provocations are anything as simple as an image, where we as the teacher prompts the students to with questions such as “What do you see?” and allows for the students to take charge of their own learning and use their own knowledge to investigate. 

It was so cool to see a teacher who is so passionate about letting her students take charge of their own learning and just wonder. This is a way of teaching I am very interested in learning more about. I love that this way of teaching always for the students to be their own teachers and has the teacher acting as more of a guide, facilitating their students learning. It also allows the teacher to take into consideration their students’ interests and incorporate those into her curriculum by using the interests as inquires. I also found it very interesting how Rebecca structures her inquiries with her students. When she first introduces an inquiry to the class, it is very structured and planned by the teacher, as the year goes on the teacher is able to allow the students more freedom with their inquiries. 

I am very thankful for our visit to Rebecca’s classroom and I am very excited to learn more about inquiry based learning. I have just purchased Rebecca and Trevor Mackenzie’s book “The Inquiry Mindset” and I suggest all educators do the same. As our curriculum changes, we as educators need to adapt to meet the needs of all our students and inquiry based learning allows us to do so.