Ways of Inquiry: The Distinctiveness of the Oxford College General Education Program

Abstract

This chapter presents the narratives of four faculty who have designed Inquiry-Based Learning courses for students in the first two years of undergraduate study at Emory University, a major research institution. Oxford College of Emory offers an array of inquiry-based courses, and students choose three such courses during their two years at Oxford. While inquiry has enjoyed clear successes in the courses of every liberal arts discipline at the college, one repeated area of struggle was “assessment” in these nontraditional courses. To address this question, a small group of faculty chosen for their representation of major academic areas of natural sciences (Organic Chemistry), social sciences (Economic Anthropology), literature (Literary Criticism), and language (Intermediate Spanish) convened during the 2013–2014 academic year to discuss and develop examples of assessment techniques in the inquiry classroom. This chapter offers their experiences in development and assessment of IBL courses.

Citation

Galle, J., Harmon, B., Ory DeNicola, A. and Gunnels, B. (2014), "Ways of Inquiry: The Distinctiveness of the Oxford College General Education Program", Inquiry-based Learning for Faculty and Institutional Development: A Conceptual and Practical Resource for Educators (Innovations in Higher Education Teaching and Learning, Vol. 1), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 121-146. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2055-364120140000001008