Teaching and Learning through Inquiry : A Guidebook for Institutions and Instructors

Inquiry-guided learning (IGL) refers to an array of classroom practices that promote student learning through guided and, increasingly independent investigation of complex questions and problems. Rather than teaching the results of others’ investigations, which students learn passively, instructors assist students in mastering and learning through the process of active investigation itself. IGL develops critical thinking, independent inquiry, students’ responsibility for their own learning and intellectual growth and maturity.The 1999 Boyer Commission Report emphasized the importance of establishing "a firm grounding in inquiry-based learning and communication of information and ideas". While this approach capitalizes on one of the key strengths of research universities, the expertise of its faculty in research, it is one that can be fruitfully adopted throughout higher education.North Carolina State University is at the forefront of the development and implementation of IGL both at the course level and as part of a successful faculty-led process of reform of undergraduate education in a complex research institution.This book documents and explores NCSU’s IGL initiative from a variety of perspectives: how faculty arrived at their current understanding of inquiry-guided learning and how they have interpreted it at various levels -- the individual course, the major, the college, the university-wide program, and the undergraduate curriculum as a whole. The contributors show how IGL has been dovetailed with other complementary efforts and programs, and how they have assessed its impact. The book is divided into four parts, the first briefly summarizing the history of the initiative. Part Two, the largest section, describes how various instructors, departments, and colleges in a range of disciplines have interpreted inquiry-guided learning. It provides examples from disciplines as varied as ecology, engineering, foreign language learning, history, music, microbiology, ph