PLAY-BASED LEARNING & THE INQUIRY STANCE EVIDENCE BASED RESEARCH
in Full Day Kindergarten
THE KINDERGARTEN PROGRAM, 2016
The Kindergarten Program highlights the importance of play-based learning and inquiry. "Innately curious, children explore, manipulate, build, create, wonder, and ask questions naturally, moving through the world in what might be called an "inquiry stance". Educators observe and document the children's thinking, ideas, and learning; interpret and analyse what they have noticed; and express their own thinking and wondering as they interact with the children. In a Kindergarten classroom, the educators adopt an inquiry stance along with the children, and a culture of inquiry characterizes the learning environment." (The Kindergarten Program, 18, 2016).
THE LEARNING EXCHANGE (PRINCIPALS WANT TO KNOW: THE KINDERGARTEN PROGRAM)
& ONTARIO MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT DIVISION 2013-2014.
"Play is an ideal vehicle for enabling children to work out their ideas and theories and use what they already know to deepen their understanding and further their learning." (The Learning Exchange, 2017)
The inquiry stance is a mindset of questioning and wondering.
Edugains'"The Complexity of Instruction" states that educators incorporate and the Inquiry Stance by using evidence-informed thinking when gauging progress and seeking feedback on the impact of teaching to inform next steps. (Edugains, 2013)
THE CAPACITY BUILDING SERIES ON INQUIRY-BASED LEARNING, 2013
“Inquiry ... requires more than simply answering questions or getting a right answer. It espouses investigation, exploration, search, quest, research, pursuit, and study. It is enhanced by involvement with a community of learners, each learning from the other in social interaction.” (Kuklthau, Maniotes & Caspari, 2, 2007)