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Enquiry-based learning is an approach to learning disciplinary knowledge that enables students to develop a critical understanding of the world. Margaret outlines the challenges that this presents for students and teachers in current educational contexts.
I am using 'enquiry-based learning' (EBL) as an umbrella term to cover a range of approaches in which students are actively engaged in investigating questions and issues. EBL can vary from investigations which are guided by teachers to those in which there is more student selfdirection. Whether it is teacher-guided or studentdirected, EBL has four essential characteristics (Roberts, 2003):
* It is question driven and encourages a questioning attitude towards knowledge.
* Students study geographical data and sources of information as evidence.
* Students make sense of information for themselves in order to develop understanding.
* Students reflect on their learning.
EBL provides three sets of challenges: for students; for teachers and in relation to current educational contexts.
Challenges for students
Students need to be aware of the key enquiry question(s) framing a unit of work. They should become familiar with the kinds of questions geographers ask and learn to formulate geographical questions themselves.
In the classroom, students do not study the world directly, but representations of it. There is a vast amount of information easily available, in a wide variety of forms, on every conceivable geographical theme, issue or place. In EBL students need to examine geographical source material, rather than rely on summaries of someone else's thinking, e.g. lists of advantages/ disadvantages. The challenge in using geographical sources as evidence is twofold. First, students need the skills to understand maps and graphs; analyse tables of statistics; read text with understanding; and interpret photographs and film (Figure 1 ). Second, they need to be critical of the source materials they use. As no representation of the world is neutral, they need to consider the origin of information, who produced it, and why.
EBL is not simply finding answers to questions. Students need to make sense of new geographical information and incorporate it into the way they see and understand the world. To do this they have to make connections of various sorts, e.g. between their everyday knowledge and new knowledge, and between different pieces of geographical information....