Thirteenth International Conference on e-Learning & Innovative Pedagogies

Abstract

Teaching students to read not to reason, which was the guiding principle of our colonizer’s education, is still influencing the pedagogical practices in the Nigerian Primary Schools. Against this background of sequestering students and reason from each other, the researcher of this work advances a radically innovative pedagogy, which is orchestrated in a community of inquiry model. With philosophy at its base, the community of inquiry pedagogy aims at engaging students and their teachers in a problem-solving dialectic so as to enhance students’ critical thinking, creative thinking, and reflective thinking through systemic and synergic thinking in our classrooms. The emergence of community of inquiry in our classrooms means that the plethora of traditionalist technique drilling, instruction, indoctrination, lecturing, conditioning, and training, which are a compendium of worrisome drills and exercises with already made answers, are to give way to concordance questioning strategies design to elicit dialogue and thus enhance thinking skills between the students and teachers.