A+Best+Practice

**Resistance to Inquiry-Based Learning **

 * ====“[People] still want the crutch of dogma, of beliefs fixed by authority, to relieve them of the trouble of thinking.” - John Dewey, //Experience and Education//====


 * ====“Rarely do we find men [and women] who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains people more than having to think." - Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.====

Countering Resistance

 * ====“Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back!”====


 * ===="Before curiosity kills it, the cat learns more of the world than 100 uninquisitive dogs.” -- Tom Robbins from //Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates//====


 * ====“I have no special gift. I am only passionately curious.” -- Albert Einstein====


 * ====Inquiry-based reading, writing, and learning strategies cut across the curriculum.====


 * ====In terms of the English Language Arts, they are applicable to most if not all aspects of state and national standards, as well as related curriculum framework: reading, reading analysis, writing, oral language, and research====


 * ====In the words of one teacher, inquiry “covers standards for so many grade levels and takes them so much further.”====

Research Says...
====John Dewey (1938), Ken Macrorie (1980), Arthur Applebee (1981), George Hillocks (1986), Kathy short and Jerome Harste (1996), Stephanie Harvey (1998), and Judith Langer (2001), and others have all demonstrated the benefits of inquiry-based learning strategies.====

====In //Research on Written Composition: New Directions for Teaching// (1986), Hillocks draws on a history of studies dealing with inquiry to conclude that instructional strategies involving inquiry always achieve significantly greater results than those that do not.====

====Similarly, in a study involving 300 classroom visits, Applebee (1981) and his colleagues describe characteristics of the best writing lessons they observed. The stronger lessons included instances of incorporating invention, inquiry, voice, experiential learning, and critical thinking skills as the most effective means of teaching composition.====