First, what is inquiry teaching?

Inquiry teaching was first put forward by American educator Dewey in the early 20th century. At the end of 1950s, American science educator Schwab established "inquiry teaching" as the cognitive concept and methodology of science education, vigorously advocated inquiry teaching, and conducted in-depth research on its principles, process models and educational concepts, which laid a solid theoretical foundation for the development of inquiry teaching and promoted its wide application in educational practice. Since the late 1950s, the achievement of American science education has been inquiry. At the beginning of 1996, the book "National Science Education Standards" published by the United States listed "inquiry" as its core position. Many experts have conducted extensive research on inquiry learning and teaching, including from the perspective of theory and application. Inquiry teaching is a teaching form under the guidance of teachers, based on students' autonomous learning and cooperative discussion, and based on existing teaching materials, which provides students with full and free opportunities to express, question, explore and discuss problems by setting meaningful problem scenarios, so that students can learn the scientific knowledge behind the problems through various problem-solving attempts such as individuals, groups and groups, and use what they have learned to solve practical problems. [1] Pay attention to the guiding role of problems in students' learning process, and mobilize students' initiative and enthusiasm in learning. The core of inquiry teaching is problem, and teaching and learning are all around many problems. This teaching method makes boring and isolated pieces of knowledge become a complete knowledge chain, which can promote students' continuous thinking, stimulate students' desire for expression, give full play to each student's potential and cultivate students' spirit of autonomous learning. [2]

Second, the basic requirements of inquiry teaching

Inquiry teaching, as a highly respected teaching mode in the world, is different from the traditional teaching mode. It has the following basic requirements: (1) Taking problems as the starting point of learning. All students' learning content is structured around problems, which must be unstructured problems in real life that students may encounter in professional fields, and there is no fixed solution. [3] (2) Pay attention to group cooperative learning and autonomous learning. The teacher seldom talks. While learning knowledge, students also increase social interaction, and on this basis, develop their own abilities and cooperation skills. (3) Both sides of teaching should be clear about their positions. Teachers should understand that they are no longer the only knowledge base, but only the coach who guides cognitive learning skills, the promoter of knowledge construction and the consultant of information. Teachers should be familiar with the syllabus and students' ability, formulate a targeted discussion outline and choose appropriate cases; At the same time, we should be good at mobilizing students' enthusiasm, entertaining and controlling classroom rhythm. Students should change their ideas and complete the role transformation. Because students in China have been cramming education for a long time, they are dependent on the traditional education mode and lack the initiative and ability to find and solve problems, so this teaching mode will be too "time-consuming". Therefore, students should realize the problem as soon as possible, complete the role transformation as soon as possible, and become the master of learning from passive learners. (D) The various teaching methods in the teaching mode must be combined with evaluation. If all kinds of teaching methods are not linked to assessment, it is difficult to expect good results. Because people are lazy, if there is no assessment, it is difficult to last only by enthusiasm, and it is inevitable that there will be "hitchhiking" behavior. Therefore, teachers should spend more time designing evaluation methods and methods, and spend more time implementing evaluation.

Third, the application and practice of "inquiry teaching" mode in management courses

(A) research suitable for problem-based development of "inquiry teaching" content

"Inquiry teaching" is completely different from traditional teaching, and the teaching based on problems and resources is its important feature. In a complete management course system, each chapter has a lot of content. If we don't pay attention to the primary and secondary, and don't consider the connection between management and other courses in content, then inquiry teaching can't achieve the expected effect in a limited class time. Therefore, it is necessary to have full communication among teachers in the course group and with teachers of other economic and management majors. For those courses that are repetitive and will be emphasized in future courses, such as financial management, modern management science, human resource management and strategic management, just briefly introduce them. Management courses focus on management and managers, the evolution and development of eastern and western management theories, management ethics and social responsibility, management environment research, decision-making, organizational structure design, organizational culture, leadership theory and leadership art and control. At the same time, these contents should be appropriately increased or decreased according to the opening situation of different majors, and the cases and problems used should be screened according to different majors to improve students' learning efficiency and enhance learning effect.

(B) Study the organizational form suitable for "inquiry teaching"

The subject of inquiry teaching is students, so in the specific teaching organization, we should take students as the center and explore various teaching forms for the purpose of improving students' practical application ability. In the teaching process of many years, the teaching methods explored by the author mainly include: 1. Speaking before class is mainly aimed at small class teaching. The teacher informed the students of this requirement in the first class, and determined the students' speeches every time according to the class size and class hours. The content of the speech should be related to the management content, and the speech time should be controlled within 5 minutes. This method encourages students to actively look for management materials suitable for lectures, or actual examples in life, or their own understanding of book knowledge. Through such lectures, students can actively learn and think about some management problems, and express them orally through their own processing, which enhances students' ability to collect and process information and oral expression. Teachers can make appropriate questions and extensions according to the contents of students' speeches. The problem is closely related to the content of management science, which not only expands students' knowledge, but also improves students' interest in learning. 2. Case analysis Case analysis mainly involves two aspects: first, the choice of cases; The second is the specific way of case analysis. (1) case selection. First of all, the author generally chooses cases that can arouse students' more thinking, which are not very long and not necessarily real-life cases. Some cases may not be perfect or flawed, but such cases can help students find more problems in the process of reading cases. Some well-known cases, such as Haier's and Lenovo's, are generally only for students to read after class, and the discussion class is not done, because there are too many materials to be inquired about in such cases, and because of the long time, a consensus has been reached, which is not conducive to developing students' ideas; Secondly, more local cases were selected in the discussion. Because foreign cases, such as Harvard business case, are famous and classic, but they are written by westerners after all. In the actual use process, it is found that students are difficult to understand, the national conditions are different, and the applicability is not strong. This kind of case is generally only placed in the appropriate place, such as the content of organizational culture, which is mainly used to illustrate that different organizational cultures will have different specific management methods and methods; Finally, in order to be more challenging, the author also organizes students to write their own cases. Through their own observation, investigation and data collection, students are required to design more than three questions in the cases and give their own answers to the questions. In this way, students can think deeply about cases and exercise their ability to collect, process and sort out information and express words. (2) The specific way of case analysis. Students can analyze independently, then take the initiative to speak, and others refute and supplement; You can also use the form of group discussion first and then class discussion. The former method is mainly used for teaching in large classes (mainly because there are about 100 people in large classes, so there are too many people discussing in groups and speaking on stage), while the latter method is mainly used for teaching in small classes. Teachers should inform students of the cases to be discussed in advance, so that students can have enough time to read the cases, familiarize themselves with the contents of the cases and think deeply, and also encourage students to discuss them after class. In the process of class discussion, the teacher's main role is to create a relaxed and free environment, so that students can actively think and express their views and stimulate their desire to express. Teachers should inspire and guide students to find the correct analytical thinking and observe the key points from multiple angles, instead of influencing students with their own views. After the discussion, the teacher should set aside about 5 minutes to summarize the case analysis. Teachers should not draw final conclusions about the results or arguments, but should summarize, expand and sublimate the students' analysis. For unsolved difficult problems, teachers can concentrate on teaching. Students are also allowed to reserve their opinions and wait for further discussion after class. 3. role-playing. Teachers give certain cases or management problems that need to be solved, students play the role, and students put themselves in their shoes to analyze and solve the problems they face. Judging from their roles, students use what they have learned to analyze and make decisions independently, which vividly shows their understanding of problems, thus improving their actual decision-making ability. Students who watch role-playing can also remember what they have learned deeply. For example, when talking about "recruitment" in the part of "dynamic organizational behavior", the author sets a scene: on a rainy morning, the human resources department of an enterprise recruits talents, and the behaviors of recruiters and recruits are given to students for discussion and research. In the next class, after group discussion, students imagine different behavior patterns of employees and play roles on the spot. The atmosphere was relaxed and lively. Many students with acting talent brought everyone into the real scene through their own performances. The students watched their performance with curiosity and expectation. In this way, students can intuitively feel the performance of different people, have a deeper memory of what they have learned, and know more about how to improve their own quality in the future, which is much better than the effect of a teacher giving a lecture on the podium once or twice. 4. Form a virtual company. From the beginning of the course, the author guides students to form a virtual company in groups of 6-8 people. Many investigations, interviews, writing business plans, classroom group discussions and so on will be conducted in virtual companies. At the same time, the investigation and interview and the writing of business plan also laid the foundation for students to participate in various innovation and entrepreneurship competitions in the future. In this way, we can guide and establish learning and inquiry activities based on team learning. Team learning is conducive to the concentration of group wisdom and the cultivation of cooperative spirit. It not only provides students with opportunities to exercise their all-round abilities in listening, speaking, reading and writing, but also provides them with opportunities to cooperate and share with their classmates. Take the business plan as an example, give each virtual company a start-up capital of 654.38+10,000 yuan, and ask students to do necessary market research before writing to understand the basic forms of general enterprise operation, and then prepare a business plan on this basis. The requirements in the business plan include company name, SWOT analysis of the industry, staff load chart, Gantt chart, capital use and financial planning, marketing and publicity, etc. Each group will take the stage to show their works to the whole class within the specified time. Teachers can ask questions appropriately or put forward their own opinions and suggestions on the project in time, and discuss how to improve the project after class. After constant revision, a relatively complete and valuable business plan can be formed at the end of the term, and competitions between classes can also be held. This way not only encourages students to think about many management problems themselves, but also to investigate and practice in person. At the same time, it can also be combined with national, provincial and school-level innovation and entrepreneurship plan competitions, so that students can not only exercise their abilities, but also have the opportunity to get rewards, forming a virtuous circle, which is more conducive to the follow-up professional courses. 5. Share reading notes. Inquiry teaching requires guiding students to learn actively, not only in class, but also after class. In view of the current era when electronic products are developed and students' reading of paper books is greatly reduced, at the beginning of the course, we require students to choose relevant books (1) or academic papers (10) to read and write reading notes, and organize students to be divided into groups before the end of the course (either based on virtual company personnel or breaking the previous group so that students can absorb and understand more students' ideas, which is conducive to innovation). Each group will send a team leader to organize discussions on behalf of the group and share their reading experience with the whole class. In this way, students not only have a deeper understanding of what they read in management books (before sharing with others, they need to know what they read like the back of their hands, and explain the views and shortcomings of the book in a short time), but also learn more about other management books contents and get more information in a limited time. 6. Class debate. Some practical and controversial issues can be discussed. Because this is actually a comprehensive ability competition around the problem. Through this method, students' divergent thinking can be trained, students can be prompted to consider problems from many aspects, and their oral expression ability, information search ability and overall analysis ability can be trained. At the same time, it can also strengthen the tacit understanding and unity and cooperation ability within the debate group and increase friendship. For example, in the chapter of organizational culture, the author set a debate topic: Confucian culture is beneficial (unfavorable) to the development of market economy. Divide the class into two groups, representing the pros and cons respectively. Each team will send four debaters and two timekeepers. The chairman of the competition will be recommended by the students themselves. The specific debate session is decided by the students themselves, but it must include students' on-the-spot questions. After the debate, the teacher will make a concluding speech, explain the on-site performance of students from both sides and the problems that should be paid attention to, and select excellent debaters and winners. In this way, students' enthusiasm and initiative are greatly brought into play, and their understanding of Confucian culture and market economy is deepened, and the effect is very good.

(C) Study the curriculum evaluation methods suitable for "inquiry teaching"

If all the above inquiry teaching organization methods are not combined with the corresponding evaluation methods, the effect will be half the effort. Because all these organizational methods, without exception, spend a lot of spare time, which requires students to overcome the problem of laziness and slackness. If it is not linked to the assessment and one's own vital interests, it will inevitably be perfunctory, which will lead to the problems, cases and activities that teachers have worked hard to prepare, and the effect will be greatly reduced without the active cooperation and participation of students. Therefore, the evaluation method is very important for inquiry teaching. In view of the requirement that management courses should pay attention to practicality, creativity and the cultivation of practical management skills, the author comprehensively reforms the traditional assessment method of "a paper at the end of the term" and implements an open and whole-process assessment centered on ability. Because the focus of inquiry teaching is to cultivate students' innovative spirit and practical ability and enhance students' team spirit and consciousness, inquiry teaching is also an organic combination of individual independent learning, group cooperative inquiry and classroom discussion. Therefore, the evaluation should be based on students' real performance in inquiry teaching. This requires teachers to carefully observe and collect students' specific information in the process of inquiry learning, such as various homework, records, research reports and so on. In the concrete implementation, the evaluation of management courses includes the usual grades and final grades, and the ratio of the two is 60%: 40%, and the future goal is 80%: 20% or even 90%: 10%. Because a lot of work is usually done, it is necessary to continuously increase the proportion of usual grades, and the final grade is just a test paper. The usual grades include pre-class speech, the participation and effect of case analysis, the role in the virtual company, the quality of reading notes and the record of participating in class case discussion, debate and answering questions. Among them, group case analysis and evaluation of virtual company work are generally combined by group evaluation and individual evaluation, emphasizing the evaluation of groups. At the same time, we also pay attention to the students' inquiry process, practice and cooperation ability as the focus of evaluation. In practice, we found that some students have hitchhiking behavior, such as group discussion is not active and inaction, and many tasks are placed on more active students. In this case, the author considers the following ways: the performance of classroom discussion is listed as one of the performance evaluation criteria, and teachers pay attention to observing students' classroom discussion, find out students who are not fully involved in it in time, and give special reminders; In order to understand the situation of after-class discussion, each member must rank the contributions of team members to the group from big to small when submitting the group results, and there can be no juxtaposition. The students with the last comprehensive ranking should also be interviewed and assessed to fully understand their participation in learning. After nearly eight years of exploration, management has now formed a relatively perfect inquiry teaching mode, which has also been recognized and loved by the vast majority of students in teaching. In the actual operation process, the author thinks that as the leader of inquiry teaching, the design of the whole classroom is very important; At the same time, teachers should be tolerant and tolerant enough to accept different viewpoints, and should not be eager to "correct" students' seemingly unreasonable explanations. Instead, they should give students full trust and enough free space, tolerate students' mistakes, "encourage" students to make mistakes, and guide them to find real answers step by step in trial and error. At the same time, teachers should realize that inquiry teaching is not perfect, and inquiry teaching is not suitable for all contents. [4] This method requires enough spare time to prepare. If every part of the content is carried out in this way, it will be difficult to guarantee the time, and it will also lead to the situation that this course competes with other courses. Because this course is usually offered in the first semester of freshmen, students have just entered the university and have not adapted to many aspects. If too much homework takes up too much spare time, students' study of other courses will be affected, and at the same time, they may have a fear of difficulties in this course. We should pay attention to this when implementing inquiry teaching.

Author: Yao Lina Setting: Zhejiang Ocean University.

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