Learning from industry by using an inquiry based learning approach

Inquiry based and constructivist activities can motivate students to take charge of their own learning, understand multiple perspectives and develop high level reasoning skills. This paper describes a case study of six year teaching practice in one of our Master courses. The course requires the students to acquire critically analysis, evaluation and research skills. The course also requires the students to acquire the techniques and technologies related to many aspects of an enterprise website. There are only 32 hours for class meetings so the students have to work by themselves in most of the time. The best way to achieve the course requirements is to use the constructivist activities, let the students individually or collaboratively to work with the relevant partners and build the required knowledge and skills gradually. An assignment was developed which requires the students to investigate different aspects of an enterprise website. To complete this assignment, the students need to use an inquiry based learning approach. The practice is evaluated by using a set of survey data, a set of data observed from the marking reports and the industry feedbacks. The practice is effective, while the practice is improving; the students´ abilities of planning, investigating, analyzing, communicating and reflecting are improving as well. The students´ contributions are valuable to the industry. The paper also includes a discussion which links the teaching practice with the relevant theories.