What is inquiry?
nOur interpretation of John Dewey’s theory of inquiry:
n
nThinking arises from experience
nAny experience which involves contact with a new situation or material proceeds initially through trial and error
nTrial and error requires some interaction of the person’s energy with the materials
nBy seeing how materials respond to this interaction, the person begins to learn about the materials and begins to plan more fruitful interactions in new situations
So, what is “inquiry” to you? We invite all of us to write down our own definition of what inquiry is, and perhaps a short example of what we might call inquiry from our own experience. We’ll be getting to these in a bit on real-world examples.

We’ll also be adding these to our blog from this presentation, and hope it fosters further thought long after our conversation today has ended.

Our, both Craig’s and Sharon’s, sense of what “inquiry” is has been informed by the work of the American philosopher and educator John Dewey. And it is to him we initially turn.