How To Use ICT for Inquiry Based Learning

Themes emerging from the interviews with teachers regarding ICT in high schools

Learning how to teach effectively with technology both enables and requires some
fundamental changes to schooling. When teachers were asked about their experiences
related to technology use in high schools the following common themes emerged:

•  Teachers observed that creating technology enhanced inquiries for students was much more challenging than they initially anticipated and it required sustained support on a number of different levels.
•  Teachers made the following observations about student learning in relation to the ICT infused inquiries that they had undertaken
• Depth of student understanding increased
• Students demonstrated more ownership of and investment in their learning
• Students produced a higher quality of work and greater levels of scholarship  than previous groups of students
• Students were able to see greater connections between their school work and work in the real world outside of school  
• Students seemed more interested in learning 

 Supports that enable teachers to create technology infused inquiry-based learning environments for students.

Participants reported several factors that permitted them to develop and implement more
inquiry-based studies that integrated technology in new ways:

1.  Professional development that is ongoing and job embedded
2. Opportunities to work collaboratively with researchers to jointly collect and examine evidence of student learning.
3. A school culture that values and supports innovation and creativity
4. Colleagues onsite who can facilitate inquiry and effective use of ICT
5. Time to design inquiry-based technology infused learning experiences for students
6. Opportunities to collaborate with colleagues and mentors to design robust multidisciplinary tasks and assessment
7. Strong administrative leadership that:understand the importance of this work and are able to help parents understand it as well, encourages teachers to keep trying and not give up,  expects mistakes to happen but views them as learning opportunities,  is prepared to create opportunities for teachers to work collaboratively with colleagues from both within and outside of the school, and seeks to maximize the flexibility of teachers and students through creative scheduling and timetabling.  
8. Opportunities to move outside the classroom into the real world ￿  supports innovation and risk taking
9. Celebrations showcasing student work
10. Access to technology that is current and able to support the work that students and teachers want to do
11. Open technology and architecture that allows for applications to stay current and web resources accessible
12. The kind of access and flexibility that wireless laptops would make possible so that time and place cease being obstacles

The experiences of teachers involved in this initiative found that students become more
engaged when tasks require them to take an active role in their own learning and work
collaboratively with teachers, peers and experts to investigate meaningful issues, solve
problems, wrestle with important ideas, debate, invent, create and test their
understandings.  Furthermore, when young people can use technology to direct their
knowledge and understanding towards audiences beyond the classroom, school work
appears to be far more compelling.

When teachers are supported both face-to-face and online through the use of
technology to design strong inquiry work that reflects the following characteristics both
students and teachers are pleased with the results. Such work involves:

•  Authentic tasks, issues, problems and experiences
• Academic rigor created through the exploration of ill-defined, complex and multidimensional tasks
• The same demands as would be expected of high performance work organizations
• Opportunities for active exploration 
• Opportunities to connect with discipline experts outside the classroom
• Assessment aimed at improving learning, and
• Creative and mindful uses of technology throughout each phase of the inquiry.

References

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