Collection Stage

Collection stage -  when information pertinent to the focused perspective is gathered and uncertainty subsides as interest and involvement deepens

Feelings at the end of the stage:



  

At this point, the task is to gather information related to the focused topic (Kuhlthau, 2007). My job was to go through all the information that I had gathered and find evidence to support each part of the assignment with evidence and support.   I had my information on word documents to the three different areas that I was going to focus on Information Literacy, Guided Inquiry and Information Search Process, mainly focusing on Inquiry Based Learning.   I started to think of a way of writing and gathering the information into a logical format. Once I had gathered all the information on to different pages for the parts I would be focusing on, I then went through a process of deciding which information I wanted to include in my assignment and how I should set my assignment up. At this stage I was not feeling that my uncertainty had no subsided as described in the Collection stage, I was still feeling rather uncertain.   I sent an email of how I wanted to set it out to Mandy so that she could see how I wanted to do it.

As I begun putting all of my information together in a more logical sequence I noticed how all of the below topics were interrelated to one another.  So it was more looking like a circular pattern rather then just vertical.  I began to realize that to be Information Literate you needed to have the skills to help you understand and find what you are reading and that Information Literacy also underpinned what skills you needed to Inquire about topics and therefore you became Information Literate with those skills that helped you to inquire about what you were researching. I also noted that Guided Inquiry is related to Inquiry based learning as it’s a way of doing Inquiry.  I remember reading in Kuhlthau (2007) that Guided Inquiry is grounded in the constructivist approach and the Guided Inquiry is interrelated to the Information Search Process. With all of this in mind I have tried to do a concept map of how they are all related. Once I had an understanding of what underpinned what I feel more adequate in what to do next with my assignment.

.

In my searches I decided to go onto Youtube to get a better understanding of what it means to include Inquiry based learning. I came across a relevant clip that really stood out to me and helped me to understand what Inquiry Based learning is all about.

My reflection on watching this YouTube clip:

After watching this Youtube clip I realized what Inquiry based learning was. It is more than just talk and talk, in fact it shouldn't be teacher focused.  The elements of Inquiry based learning are:

1. It is very much student centred in that it asks students to think of questions, have active participation in activities,
2. Questioning is the central idea for inquiry as when children ask questions they are able to think critically and independently to learn. From asking questions the students are then able to generate information to gain answers from their questions which enables them to learn.
3. Active participation is another element of Inquiry learning as it "According to Jermoe Bruner - 1915 active learners are those which learners construct new ideas and concepts based upon the present and past knowledge and go beyond information" (Yoder, 2011 ) .  
4. Its more on "how we come to know" than about "how we know".

After watching this Youtube clip I feel really encouraged to implement of Inquiry based learning in my teaching at school and also encourage other teachers to use it in their teaching.

At this point of the assignment a light came on inside of my as to what it meant by Inquiry Based Learning. UP to that point I did not exactly fully understand what Inquiry Based learning was or how to implement it. After looking up lots of different resources I was finally able to understand what it was and how to implement it in my teaching.

Bibliography

Kuhlthau, Carol. (2007). Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st Century. Libraries Unlimited. United States of America.

Yoder, Maureen.(2005). Inquiry Based Learning Using the Internet. The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. http://www.uwex.edu/disted/conference/Resource_library/proceedings/03_57.pdf  [Accessed 25th August, 2011]