Enquiry-based learning workshop for deep learning in Middle Eastern classrooms – an action research approach

Abstract

The senior year design students and I were dismayed when my linear teaching and their habitual rote learning failed in a Middle Eastern University. The gulf between the curricular objectives and our teaching-learning methods intrigued me. I turned this into an action research project that sought to answer the questions, ‘What paradigm shift might we need to migrate from traditional rote learning to deep learning? What attitudinal change and philosophical beliefs would that call for in an instructor?’ The search for a solution metamorphosed me from a disengaged instructor into an empathizing reflecting practitioner. It led my students to active engagement in an enquiry-based learning workshop, which significantly improved their performance. This paper celebrates the journey of our collective deep learning. It explicates how I built my personal theory of teaching praxis through critical consciousness and meta reflection. This knowledge-creation process is empowering and may draw many teacher researchers towards meta-reflexive engagement with the social systems around. These change drivers can initiate institutional overhaul to effect systemic reforms.

Keywords:

• Deep learning
• learning through enquiry
• action research
• test anxiety
• Saudi Arabia
• rote learning

Acknowledgements

I thank my mentors Connie Mitchel, Julie Baldry Currens and Tony Rea, faculty members and peer reviewers, Jane Britt Greenwood and Mahesh Daas for their valuable feedback and the students for their participation. The University is thanked for making available its online repositories. Also thanked are the anonymous reviewers for their incisive critique and constructive suggestions that metamorphosed the manuscript.

Notes

1. Name changed.

2. Name changed.