Communities of inquiry pedagogy in undergraduate courses

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article proposes that undergraduate legal education should engage students in communities of inquiry where students learn to think critically by working in collaborative groups on a worthwhile research question of their own choosing. The community of inquiry is a return to the idea of the university as a community of scholars, of students capable of critical, creative and caring thought. Students engage in research projects and make their ideas available to others as a contribution to a work of knowledge building. This article describes the use of a community of inquiry approach, both in a core undergraduate law course and in an elective course at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The article explains how an action research methodology was used to explore ways of implementing the communities of inquiry methodology. Surveys and interviews were used to gather data. The article discusses the lessons learned from this project; the most important lessons concerned the benefits that students report from engaging in collaborative inquiry.