Enquiry Based Learning

Enquiry  Based Learning

Reading through Matthew B. Crawford’s book, Shop Class As SoulCraft, I am left with the reflection of one of the current educational practices called, enquiry based learning. Interesting to note that this term is quickly becoming one of the key catch phrases in the educational pedagogy literature. Although, when you look through history you discover that the practice of enquiry based learning dates back to the era of Aristole. Many professionals in the field of education give credit to the well know educator, John Dewy for bringing this practice back to the forefront.

“There is no single definition of enquiry-based learning. However enquiry-based learning can be described as learning that arises through a structured process of enquiry within a supportive environment, designed to promote collaborative and active engagement with problems and issues. Learning becomes more effective when students are actively involved in the learning process.” (Bonwell and Eison, 1991; Sivan et al., 2001).

The key concepts of enquiry based learning are:  Student Engagement, Facilitated teaching and Construction of their own knowledge.  This is supported by Crawford when he states, “ Florida informs us that “ Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson has made it his company’s stated mission to provide an “inclusive, innovative work environment designed to unleash the power of all of our people as they have fun while being the best.” (Shop Class As SoulCraft, p 48)

Please see below the comparison of Anderson’s Work Environment to Enquiry Based Learning:

Student Engagement - Anderson’s willingness to allow his employees to have fun while being the best is an example of employee engagement.

Facilitated Teaching - Anderson’s company’s mission statement in itself supports a facilitated work environment.

Construction of Own Knowledge - Anderson’s encouragement to unleash the power of the people promotes creativity resulting in knowledge building.

It is the combination of all three that allowed Anderson’s company to excel.

What does enquiry based learning mean to our entire student population?  Our provinces educational mandate is one of inclusive education where all students with individual abilities learn together in an inclusive classroom environment. How effective is enquiry based learning for student with disabilities such as, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Sensory Processing Disorder or someone with a social deficit? 

In my opinion, this could only work if and only if the educational facilitator is aware and well trained on the diverse learning styles of their learners. Not only is it necessary to understand the individual’s learning style but one must have the knowledge of the disability and the educational best practices for teaching to this individual. Then and only then, can enquiry based learning work in an inclusive classroom environment. It requires knowledge, the ability to implement an educational scaffolding approach if needed for the special learner.

Yes to enquiry based learning if the educational facilitator is well educated, possess the knowledge and the ability to implement and support this learning style for all.

                                                                 

A Day in the Life of a Paramedic

A Day in the Life of a Paramedic

10:05 Unit 286 respond code 2 to an incoming call on Elm Street.

10:06 Unit 286 you are responding to 123 Elm Street for a 20 year old male with a hemorrhage complaint. Continue code 2.

10:07 Unit 286 upgrade to code 1 response. Hemorrhage reported as bad. Patient reports a laceration to his thumb.

Unit 286 was now driving lights and siren through heavy traffic to get to this emergency call. An elderly couple, who was in the vehicle in front of the ambulance, almost went off the road because the ambulance siren scared them. The driver was not sure how to respond. As ambulance 286 arrived on scene, the paramedics were met outside by the twenty year old male who had called 911 looking for a band aid for the paper cut he sustained to his thumb. A band aid was applied (sticky side down) and then the paramedics collected his personal information, conducted a complete body assessment including vital signs, and they got him to sign a non transport form. The ambulance went “available” after being with the patient for 20 minutes. These twenty minutes were required not because of his injuries, but because the system is designed to collect lots of information for quality assurance purposes, billing, and statistics. The paramedics complain to one another on the drive back how this call was an abuse of 911 and that they can not believe that the communication center sent them code 1 for a paper cut. The ambulance gets back to base and for the next 30 minutes the electronic patient care report is being typed up and submitted.

The above ambulance call is one that I had actually done (some details changed, not to identify anyone). For years I have complained that it seems we are like robots responding to a computer program on how we should respond to an ambulance call. You would think that the call taker taking the information would know that sending an ambulance to a paper cut on a thumb is not a life threatening emergency requiring a lights and siren response. To think that a car with an elderly couple, almost went off the road so we could get to a paper cut because the twenty year old male had no band aids in the house. This is hard to justify in my mind. I mentioned this to my supervisor and he tells me that the dispatch computer program makes those decisions and not the communication officer sitting in the chair. For the past fifteen years I have been accustomed to accept this answer and it is expected that we ourselves don’t question the computer, but rather comply, like a robot would respond to a command. In Shop Class As Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into The Value Of Work, Matthew Crawford talks about “Expert Systems” which he mentions is a term coined by artificial intelligence researchers which found their way into medical diagnosis. In The Electronic Sweatshop: How Computers Are Transforming the Office of the Future into the Factory of the Past, Barbara Garson details how “extraordinary human ingenuity has been used to eliminate the need for human ingenuity.” Garson also states “To build an expert system, a living expert is debriefed and then cloned by a knowledge engineer… The knowledge engineer watches the expert work on sample problems and asks exactly what factors the expert considered in making his apparently intuitive decisions. Eventually hundreds or thousands of rules of thumb are fed into the computer. The result is a program that can make decisions or draw conclusions heuristically instead of merely calculating with equations. Like a real expert, a sophisticated expert system should be able to draw inferences from iffy or incomplete data that seems to suggest or tends to rule out. In other words it uses or replaces judgment.”

So what do these statements mean and how do they apply to my situation. Well, when someone calls 911 a number of predetermined questions are asked and dependent on what they answer, more questions are asked. Think of it like the board game Chutes and Ladders. You land on a square and if the square has a chute you go down to another section of the board. If you then latter land on a ladder then you are moved up the game and this continues until you reach the finish line. Well the finish line in the 911 call could be considered when the 911 dispatcher hangs up the phone and terminates the phone call or when paramedics arrive on scene. If the situation is serious enough, pre arrival instructions are read word for word from a computer screen. Some examples would be how to do C.P.R., control serious bleeding, or perhaps how to prepare for childbirth. Now I will admit, in most cases the questions asked are very appropriate and the pre arrival instructions are helpful. The down side of following strict computer guidelines is that it lacks “common sense”. The human thought process is taken away. As in the ambulance call above, when the twenty year old male called 911 and stated that his thumb is bleeding badly, there was no follow up question like “describe bad, is it cut off”. Because the caller used the word “bad” an emergency response was generated. If there was a paper cut action guidance card, the ambulance would have been sent code 2 and the elderly couple driving the car wouldn’t have almost gone off the road.

I would like to discuss how my ambulance call can be tied into lifelong learning. We are all educators. Some of us have formal educational training and lots of us do not. When we share our thoughts and ideas to one another in our human culture, we are indeed educating others. It is important to remember what makes us human. We have the ability to think for ourselves, rationalize, and come up with our own thoughts and ideas. If we continue to allow computer programs to make more and more of our decisions, then we could become dependant on the very computers that we use every day.  Don’t be like the 911 dispatcher, our life does not always fit into computer cards, being human is much more complex then any computer can “understand.” We are much more then a series of ones and zeros in a computer program. So the next time that you are faced with someone that is bleeding you can ask yourself, what will the 911 operator tell me to do or should I just hold pressure and apply the band aid sticky side down like my mom taught me.

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This is a practice post