We had the wonderful opportunity to learn from Jeff Hopkins who is the founder and principal of Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry. This independent high school in downtown Victoria aims to use inquiry-based learning to scaffold their students into real-life situations. They follow a model where learners create and develop their questions at the beginning of the year. Then students and teachers work together to develop ways they can explore their inquiry.
The student-led inquiry follows the model:
Creating question
Research question
– Discussions, asking experts, exploring and experimenting
Refine or create new questions
Create lessons that answer these questions
– In the background of these lessons students focus on specific competencies in the BC curriculum
– Develop goals of these competencies in their learning experiences (that is what is assessed and measured)
Students at PSII have multiple inquiries going at once throughout the year. One thing I found very interesting was that there are classes that are taught as a course but the lesson content is centred around specific student inquiries so some students may come in for a few lessons for research or they take it as a traditional class for the whole year. I love learning about inquiry-based learning schools and it was amazing to see a realistic way they can fulfil the BC curriculum.
