Inquiry for Meaningful Learning

Inborn curiosity and inquiry attitude are invaluable features of humans, rarely appreciated and maintained in today's education, overloaded by massive content knowledge in all subjects. Developing these features in the young generation is urgent, in times when, concededly, information can be easily accessed; nevertheless, profound reflection still needs to be appropriately cultivated since it is in high demand on personal and global levels. Teachers who want to maintain an inquiry stance and skills in students need to reinforce their own inquiry competencies in teaching and learning through active collaboration with other professionals. Teachers can become role models in inquiry for their students only when they get profoundly engaged in a shift from traditional to inquisitive education and the reflection on this transformation. For more than ten years, our group has been designing and implementing CPD strategies to promote the Inquiry-Based Learning method in science education. A sequence of CPD strategies developed in collaboration with other EU partners has led to a considerable rise in the sustainability of teacher inquiry stance and their engagement in reflective, collaborative learning.