Symposium on Scholarly Inquiry into Teaching and Learning Practice

It was a great day Friday at this first symposium on teaching and learning practice put on by bccampus. A great deal of small scale inquiry is going on, and I think that in this field, progress is best measured in increments of the individual practitioner deliberately inquiring into her own practice. I did on occasion wish that presenters/facilitators kept the focus on the inquiry-process aspects rather than describe in detail their courses/topics of inquiry. I guess they were motivated by the questions of the participants who would ask them to describe in further detail their particular course topic or teaching approach, so it is probably more of a reflection on the participants, and perhaps their ‘maturity’ with an emphasis on scholarly inquiry rather than, say, a showcase (and I include myself here). In the end, it was motivating for me to take action rather than just keep thinking about it, and what I learned from the symposium is that it doesn’t have to complicated.