Case Study: Using the iPad in the Inquiry Based Learning

The iPad is a key factor in the Foundation in Professional Studies (FiPS) course as it allows the Inquiry Based Learning (IBL) model to function in a way that would be very difficult if not impossible and certainly very, very resource hungry with it.

The Hopkins (2013) IBL model - see http://www.mmiweb.org.uk/hull/site/ibl/ibl_process.html  

The FiPS course this year is running an IBL model using the Hopkins (2013) adaptation of the Justice model (2007) and the Kolb (1984) reflective cycle. This model relies on the students having access to significant resource both before the session and during. The iPad gives that access to the resource in a secure way - resource that includes video, graphics, e-books as well as text. The students then use the device during the sessions to do research and to present ideas to the rest of the group.

Would this be possible without the Pad - well maybe - but it would assume that all students had access to the internet at home (or we would have to provide the resources on a portable data system or in paper format - and this would reduce the resources possible to textual and possible graphic sources). Then during the session we would either again have to provide resource (and significant resource) in a paper format OR we would have to allows students to the library to undertake the tasks which would again be difficult in terms of resource as well as the difficult of managing the time needs for such an exercise.

This gives us both an efficiency and and effectiveness again (McCormack, 2001) and allows us to engage with this innovative pedagogy rather than the lecture and seminar format which has not been successful before - again the iPad is a gateway to more effective learning - and the initial feedback from the tutors is that the quality of dialogue from the students is significantly higher than last year (though of course these are different students).