Inquiry Learning Methods Are Developed at Turku

​The University of Turku is a member in the Ark of Inquiry which is a consortium research project with 13 partners and funded by the EU. Postdoctoral Research Fellow Tomi Jaakkola, who works at the Faculty of Education, is part of the core group and has been involved in the project since very beginning.

– We want to create starting points for inquiry learning that supplements the textbooks. The goal is that the pupils and students would investigate subjects by themselves, inspiring enthusiasm for inquiry and learning things through research. For the first few times, the teacher can give the topic of the research, but the goal is that later on the pupils will come up with their own research questions and find out more about topics and phenomena that interest or puzzle them, says Tomi Jaakkola.

The members of the Ark of Inquiry aim to gather online materials which inspire inquiry learning as much as they can find. They are planning to translate all the materials into the languages of the 12 countries that are part of the project and possibly into some other languages as well.

Another central task of the project is to train a thousand European teachers to use the method of inquiry learning in their teaching. The development of the pedagogical model is the responsibility of the University of Turku researchers.

– The training will take place in five countries and Finland is one of them. The plan is to give both basic information on inquiry learning and give advice on how the teachers can motivate their students, says Jaakkola.

The work began in March and already the plans are well advanced. Jaakkola presents an operations model where the inquiry learning is divided into five stages. First the pupils will orient themselves to the topic, for example, with the assistance of the teacher or a video, and in the next stage the task is conceptualised by defining the research question. The actual research phase, where the pupils actively study and try to find out answers to the topics and phenomena which are of interest to them, is followed by the conclusions and presenting the findings to the group.

Learning by “Doing”

Completely new materials do not have to be created for the project. According to Jaakkola, there is a vast amount of materials that already exist. He shows some examples on his computer. In one program, you can build a circuit, in another one research the density of different materials by floating them in a test tube filled with water. On a third page, there is a follow-up study on the development of the fish stock since the 1960s.

– To the pupils, these are tools which they can use in their research. Our task at the University of Turku is to create criteria so that we can judge which materials support inquiry learning, says Jaakkola.

He adds that in inquiry learning there does not have to be any ready-made answers. The pupils can do different kinds of experiments and observe them.

–In a way, this is learning by doing, although the ”doing” does not have to be concrete, it is enough that something happens in the brain, says Jaakkola.

He gives an example of an American boy who started calculating how many characters can be fitted on a page with different fonts and how much he can spare in the printing costs with the most efficient font.

Turning the Tide of Decreasing Interest

The portal aims at reaching European pupils and students from 7 to 18 year-olds and the portal will have exercises in several different levels of difficulty. Only a couple of percent of the whole age group will be able to complete the most difficult assignments.

Ark of Inquiry should be finished by February 2018. The first pilots will take place in the autumn 2015 at the latest.

The EU has high expectations for the project as there is a larger matter at hand than just a new teaching method. Ark of Inquiry aims at increasing the interest in natural sciences.

– In the rest of Europe, they call the field science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), which we call mathematics and natural sciences in Finland. All over Europe, children’s interests in these subjects are declining. This is also apparent at the university in that each year there are fewer students applying to these fields of study, says Jaakkola.

It is a problematic situation as, for example, it is EU’s goal to further responsible development where mathematics and natural sciences are in a key role.

Text and photos: Erja Hyytiäinen
Translation: Mari Ratia