I am personally very appreciative for the transition we made this week from a traditional university-style lecture, to a more interactive, and collaboration-based workshop, thank you Michael! An “EdCamp” is something that I had never heard of, but after participating in one, I can for sure speak to its benefit in initiating both thought-provoking and intentional conversation on relevant topics or issues. I specifically enjoyed how we as students got to pick the preceding, allowing us to have a say and become involved. On the google document, I suggested the question “Is Inquiry-based learning always effective?,” and thus spent the majority of the allotted time in this breakout room. To explain my reasoning, I choose to bring this up as I feel that inquiry-based learning has been a recurring theme throughout all of the cohort 1 courses for this semester, with most every professor wanting us to incorporate some aspect of it into our studies. However, although I recognize the many positive, progressive aspects of this teaching strategy and its efforts to reach all children, this has been our only area of focus, with little mentioned about its challenges, downsides, or even its overall effectiveness. Likewise, I highly doubt that inquiry is the only way to create passionate and eager students, and I have been thus wondering about other approaches that are used within the realm of education. My peers and I touched on this and struggled with the idea of structure; we know from previous occasions that children oftentimes thrive on this, but that typically the way inquiry presents itself is structureless. So, in response to this, how can a balance be found? Also, we reflected on how some subjects like social studies and science seemed to be easier to integrate student-driven learning into than others. For example, how can one use math and PE to guide inquiry? Another difficulty that came to mind was the assessment portion; finding the space for one-on-one opportunities is hard, and on what basis/criteria is evaluation made? Within this, in group-based activities, how do we as teachers ensure that students are working together or that there isn’t just 1 person taking the lead? As well, we toyed with where children should be getting their research from when completing such a project, as pulling random information from the internet is not always a reliable and safe practice. Conclusively, while we did not come up with a set “solution” relating to our topic, it was helpful to hear everyone’s stance in an open discussion format, as I became familiar with many points that I had not before considered. I think ultimately I would like to branch out and further talk to individuals with more related experience, but have come to the understanding and need to remind myself that inquiry is a broad spectrum, and does not have to intimidating or daunting – it can start with simply being curious.