Expert Searching with A+ Education database

Powering on with my search to identify models of Inquiry Learning and the 'ultimate' model for my school context (if one even even exists) I find myself at the trust-worthy Queensland University of Technology Library catalogue*. 

*Don't worry if you don't have access to a well resourced university library database collection, many local libraries will have access to these for members. The State Library of Victoria allows Victorians to sign-up for membership online giving them access to a range of databases and other digital content, check out your own state library for a similar deal. 

One such database is A+ Education, an Australian online collection of full text articles from more than 130 Australasian journals dealing with education specific topics. Picking up where we left google scholar in my last foray into searching I re-cycle some of my search terms (replacing "secondary school" with "secondary education") and take into account A+ Education's search tips. 

screenshot of A+ Education database via informit by author

The search string above is basic ("inquiry learning" AND secondary education AND framework") and yielded only 12 results which is a highly manageable number. The quality of the returned results and my broad inquiry (being non specific to a particular discipline) meant that I didn't need to get more creative with my search technique. 

Further steps for this search could have incorporated the use of truncation in the term inquiry (as *nquiry) to pull up results containing enquiry; wildcard terms such as educat? to search variants of education such as educator, educate or educating; or the proximity operator % between inquiry and learning (inquiry % learning) to indicate that the terms need to be adjacent but in no particular order.

This search has left me with interesting resources to read, adding to my overall understanding of Inquiry Learning... a pastiche of ideas that I now need to reconcile into a coherent thought process. These resources will come together in a later post outlining content curation for your reading pleasure. The term "democratic learning" is featured within one of my results, Hooley's New structures to support democratic learning, and is a term I'd never heard before. Defaulting back to Google search I plugged in the search string "democratic learning" AND inquiry and came across a nice overview of the democratic learning process and an interesting article: Child-centred inquiry learning: How mathematics understanding emerges  by Calder & Brough, featured in the International Journal for Mathematics Teaching and Learning (2013). 

The following quotes stuck out for me in this paper as I feel it wholly reflects why Inquiry Learning frameworks and tasks may not be utilised to their full potential within schools.

"Authentic tasks reflect the nature of real problems because they are complex, ill structured, contain multiple perspectives and offer multiple pathways or solutions" (Young, 1993). In addition, the nature of inquiries involves many skills that are not measurable through standardised tests such as the ability to negotiate, create knowledge, think creatively and critically, and work together for the common good." (Calder & Brough,  2013)

Further questions arising from this search:

• What is democratic learning?
• Is Inquiry Learning democratic at its' heart?