Classroom teaching through inquiry

Inquiry-based learning is a process in which a student poses a question, develops an experiment, collects and analyzes data, answers the question, and presents the results. The process of inquiry encourages "information processing" rather than "information scanning." The inclusion of inquiry strengthens an engineering curriculum, as real-world science and engineering problems are, by nature, approached on an inquiry basis. Inquiry extends and complements the recently emphasized "active-learning" approach of increased class interaction. The inquiry approach was tested in an undergraduate construction materials course by revising the laboratory portion to incorporate elements of inquiry and active learning. The paper provides a background on the inquiry approach, discusses the details of developing the inquiry-based laboratory, and summarizes the outcome of this experiment. Lessons learned, including shortcomings of applying the inquiry model, are discussed along with recommendations for its application.