Engaging Students through Inquiry-Oriented Learning and Technology
This book serves as an excellent primer for teachers on the value of inquiry learning as a teaching modality. Coffman clarifies the importance of inquiry learning under the umbrella of self-directed knowledge construction. Engaging Students through Inquiry-Oriented Learning and Technology offers teachers both the theoretical underpinnings of inquiry learning as well as practical takeaways of activities that can be put to immediate use in the classroommmm (Dave Mirra, chief technology officer, Stafford County Public Schools, Stafford, VA)Engaging Students through Inquiry-Oriented Learning and Technologyis easy to read and follow, even if you are not a teacher. One of the most important things I learned was to be a guide and to not set too many limits for the students. (Ashley M. DeBord, preservice teacher and graduate education student)Web inquiry allows students to take charge in their assignment and is more focused on them finding information online than having the teacher post Web sites for the students to use. These activities make students think and will keep them focused on finding answers that they need. I have to make my hook interesting in order to keep my students motivated and interested in the topic. (Brian Southerland, preservice teacher and graduate education student)What a great resource! Coffman makes the reading easy to understand but gives plenty of information and detail; her knowledge of the subject matter comes through without impeding the reader with many technical terms. What I thought about when I readEngaging Students through Inquiry-Oriented Learning and Technologyis how little I really understood about Web-based inquiry. This text gives me some innovative ideas for my own web-based activity. (Jeanne Bergeron, math teacher and graduate student in education)Wow! After readingEngaging Students through Inquiry-Oriented Learning and Technology, I have a much better understanding of a Web inquiry activity. When designing and developing my web-based lessons, I will remember to keep the ideas interesting. I want to hook students and get them actively involved in their learning. The more my lesson intrigues students, the better their learning and development of ideas because they are truly interested and want to learn more. When students analyze and synthesize their own ideas, they don't get the ideas of a filtered textbook; instead they create meaning from what they are discovering. In the web-based inquiry activity, my job is to assist students and be their support when they have problems not guide their every single movement. (Stephanie Iero, preservice teacher and graduate student in education)Textbooks provide a good solid source to use in the classroom, but too many teachers use them as their only source. Why would you not use the Web when it has so much valuable information right at your students' fingertips?Engaging Students through Inquiry-Oriented Learning and Technologyreally helped me to understand all the good things that come with using technology in the classroom. (Kelley A. Dent, preservice teacher and graduate student in education)This book serves as an excellent primer for teachers on the value of inquiry learning as a teaching modality. Coffman clarifies the importance of inquiry learning under the umbrella of self-directed knowledge construction.Engaging Students through Inquiry-Oriented Learning and Technologyoffers teachers both the theoretical underpinnings of inquiry learning as well as practical takeaways of activities that can be put to immediate use in the classroom (Dave Mirra, chief technology officer, Stafford County Public Schools, Stafford, VA)The inquiry-oriented activities discussed in Coffman's book allow students to be active and engaged in their own learning. This approach to educating twenty-first century learners is exactly what students need to be competitive in this global marketplace! The use of WebQuests, Web-based inquiry, and telecollaborative activities provides students with the hands-on learning they need to be twenty-first century citizens. Students in today's classroom not only need to be engaged, motivated, and interested in learning; they also need to apply their knowledge to the world they live in. . . . I would highly recommend this book to any practicing teacher who wants to do more in the classroom than just lecture and who sees the benefit of real-world application to stimulate theoretical, textbook learning. (Mary Beth Klinger, professor of business, College of Southern Maryland, La Plata, MD)