Inquiry Based Learning

"Inquiry" is defined as "seeking truth, information, or knowledge” which essentially means seeking information by questioning.We carry the process of inquiry from the time we are born till we die. This is true even though we may not reflect upon the process. Nature is also organized in this fashion. Right from birth, babies observe faces that come near, they grasp objects, they put things in their mouths, and they turn toward voices. The process of inquiring is intrinsic and begins with gathering information and data through applying the human senses, namely seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling.

Unfortunately, our traditional educational system has worked in a way that discourages the natural process of inquiry. Students become less prone to ask questions as they move through the grade levels. In traditional schools, students learn not to ask too many questions, instead to listen and repeat the expected answers. Some of the discouragement stems from our lack of understanding about the deeper nature of the inquiry-based learning. Sometimes this discouragement gradually yields to the student not understanding a subject, ignoring it and eventually developing repulsion to it. As parents, sometimes it is hard to pinpoint such a cause since it is the subconscious that is at work here.

Our endeavor at Zigya is to ensure that the students are updated with answers to their questions on topics across subjects so that they do not develop an aversion to it. Zigya believes in Question Based Learning where each topic of a subject is approached through breaking it down in to questions, whose answers are then provided. While it is easy for someone with a limited understanding of how the platform works, to pass this off as an answer key of NCERT books, if one delves a little deeper one would find that the whole process has been engineered to ensure that children become self reliant through getting answers to their questions, anywhere, anytime, and also build a high self-esteem by knowing answers to the questions amongst a peer group.

Zigya is an outcome of a detailed study following research by eminent educationists and visionaries in the field of education on the importance of nurturing a child’s curiosity. An effective education gives individuals different but interrelated views of the world and a good teacher is the one who always challenges the intelligence of her students, nurturing them to strive on.