Classroom Management for Successful Student Inquiry

                The article I focused on spoke of how to successfully manage student inquiry-based activities and also some benefits to using this kind of approach in the classroom. In the classroom where teacher focuses on inquiry-based activities, he/she becomes a participant and not a focus of student attention. This requires different kind of management in the classroom. First of all, students are very engaged in inquiry-based classroom and do not need any extrinsic motivation, they are motivated intrinsically by their desire to learn more about the subject they are studying.

            I want to teach that kind of classroom where students are fully engaged and I am not a holder of all information, because honestly speaking as a beginning teacher; I do not know much yet. I am still trying to figure out my way around, gaining my own knowledge of content, so, this kind of classroom is ideal and not just because of that, but because I wish the students to be engaged, to work together to learn new concepts and expand their thinking.

            Now, a few strategies to manage this kind of classroom are necessary. First, as a teacher you need to be prepared. It is more time consuming, but in the end there will be less supervision and the students will work together. Some of the concerns of course are to keep students on task. One way to do that is to keep reminding them what to work on, circulating the room, giving them suggestions on how to approach the task, and to be involved with them. The teacher needs to be a part of this, not just sitting comfortably at his/her desk. Prompting them and asking periodical questions on their progress, on what they discovered is essential.

            In the beginning, this kind of approach will require structure, then the structure decreases and student autonomy increases. If students are just dived into this without some prep and structure, they might get lost and thus they will get off task, because they are confused. A way to help them is to also stop the class during discussion and ask them to convene with other students on what they have. Ex: brainstorming in small cooperative groups. I think another point that was not mentioned in the article is accountability. There needs to be a way in which student will be accountable for what they do; they need to show some kind of product at the end or gaining of knowledge.

            One more important thing to remember is to modify activities to meet individual student needs, basically differentiate your instruction.

            Last note, in the article this approach to classroom management was meant for science classes, but I think it could work well in any other setting, such as English or Math, because in all classes there are problems that could be solved as a class.

The article can be found on JSTOR. "Classroom Management for Successful Student Inquiry" by William P. Baker, Michael Lang, and Anton E. Lawson. The Clearing House. May/June 2002.