Drew Perkins - Inquiry Based Learning - Louisville

In this episode I’m talking with Drew Perkins. Drew is Director of Thought Stretchers Education and host of the ThoughtStretchersEducation Podcast. I wanted to speak to Drew as I continue my exploration of what inquiry looks like in the classroom and particularly how it applies to English. Drew is an active advocate for implementing inquiry in a meaningful manner within education and has helped thousands of individual teachers to do so.

We discuss:

1. The difference between inquiry, project-based and other constructivist approaches to teaching

2. What inquiry is for and what it offers students that other approaches do not

3. How we know when to give students the level of autonomy they can handle

4. How we can best aid students in generating their own questions

5. What Drew means by ‘order of operations’ and how it is practically applied

6. And finally, whether Drew thinks there's a difference between inquiry in elementary and middle-school and between different subject disciplines.

Thanks again to Drew for discussing inquiry approaches with his customary enthusiasm and expertise.

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