Trevor MacKenzie was our guest speaker this past Friday, and he is also involved with inquiry based learning. This was a fantastic lecture and there was a lot of great information. His values are as a Constructivist Educator, where learners are active and contributing part of creating the learning and learning environment. Some key terms he mentions that are heavily involved are agency, ownership, control, calm, confident, sense of self. Some big takeaways that I had from listening to him is that a big part of this teaching style is about encouraging students to be curious, ask questions, and wonder about different things. They want students to gain confidence and be strong with curricular competencies. They want students to have opportunities to share their learning in in unique ways; not everyone is a gifted writer, but if given a chance to speak about their learning or share in a way they are comfortable with, they are more likely to be engaged. I really like his idea about having a monthly planner as a visual where students can put stickers or something down through the month to show how busy they are (tournaments, concerts, practices, rehearsals) so that he doesn’t overload them with assignments or due dates around those times. Also having a due date range is a great way to spread things out for marking and give students practice in time management. Some students will hand in the assignment the first day of the due date range, and others will hand in through the range or on the last day. I think that really gives students more opportunity to work in a way that suits their learning if they are super busy or need to prioritize something else first.