The Coquitlam Open Learning Inquiry Hub is a new full-time program for grades 8-12 students starting in September 2012. It provides an innovative, technology-driven environment that allows students to pursue their own interests and learning goals through inquiry-based projects on themes like community issues and sustainability. Students will explore their questions with guidance from teachers and peers, then share what they've learned through presentations, blogs and other digital tools. The program emphasizes collaboration, design thinking, and networking to spark creativity.

1. The Inquiry Hub
An inquiry-based school coming to Coquitlam School District
September, 2012 – http://inquiryhub.org

2. Inquiry Hub is an Coquitlam Open Learning initiative.
The COL Inquiry Hub provides grade 8-12 students an innovative,
technology driven, full-time program which allows them to
pursue their own learning goals by shaping their educational
experience around their interests instead of structured classes.

3. Connect - Create - Learn
This is the process behind the Inquiry Hub. The COL Inquiry Hub
brings students together in a technology-facilitated environment and
encourages them to explore their own questions from key themes:
• Community and global issues
• Environmental sustainability
• Media Art, design and technology

5. Inquiry
Inquiry based learning is a key tenet of the COL Inquiry
Hub. When students get to choose their own topics, with
guidance and support from their teachers, peers and
community members, these learners will produce
thoughtful, rich and compelling answers.

7. Inquiry
When students explore their interests in-depth, they will
often discover insights worth sharing with others. At the
Inquiry Hub, we believe that an integral part of learning is
the ability to share what you’ve learned with others in
meaningful ways. Be it a presentation to a small
group, the entire school, the local community or online
(with the world), we will work with students to craft their
message in thoughtful, well represented ways.

9. Inquiry
An important skill to learn is how to ‘write to a specific
audience’, and there is no better way to promote this
than to give learners a legitimate audience for their
work. Through the use of blogs, wikis, digital portfolios
and social media tools, we’ll invite the world to be a
participatory audience in the work that our students do.

11. Inquiry
Collaboration is a learned skill that is essential in today’s
world. Our goal will be to have students collaborate on
projects that matter, in many different communities. We
will provide opportunities for projects to extend beyond
age-group peers to include younger and/or older students,
parents and teachers, community members, subject area
experts, and students from around the globe.

13. Inquiry
“In a learning organization, leaders are
designers, stewards, and teachers.” ~Peter Senge
At the COL Inquiry Hub, students will be provided with
many opportunities to be designers, stewards and
teachers. We believe that every student has the
potential to lead!

15. We can learn a lot from (and within) play. Play promotes
discovery and invites the idea that we can have fun
learning, even from our mistakes. From the MIT Media Lab’s
advocation of ‘Lifelong Kindergarten‘ to Google’s promotion
of employees getting 20% of their work week dedicated to
personal-interest projects, it is quickly becoming apparent
that ingenuity and creativity are both sparked from an
environment that incorporates play into learning.

17. A key principle in the new learning theory Connectivism,
considers networks to be a central metaphor for learning.
The theory suggests that ‘learning and knowledge rests
in diversity of opinions’. The COL Inquiry Hub will use a
hybrid model that blends classroom, community and
online experiences, and so students will be exposed to a
multitude of learning networks.

18. Coming to Coquitlam, September 2012…
The Inquiry Hub is new initiative by Coquitlam Open Learning and School District #43.
The COL Inquiry Hub is a full-time grade 8-12 program which offers the following benefits
for students:
• Instruction which blends classroom and online experiences in a hybrid model
• A student-driven inquiry approach to learning
• Significant reduction of formally structured class time and emphasis on a learning
commons where students do daily group project work and individual, computer-based
learning
• Class environments which group students around interests and project focus rather
than grade levels
• Parents and community as active learning partners
• Extensive use of peer mentorship in cross-grade project work
• Core, inquiry-based program offerings which are extended through the extensive list of
COL online courses

19. http://inquiryhub.org

20. http://inquiryhub.org
Photos from istockphoto.com except for: ‘Voice’ -“Neon Mic” by fensterbme on flickr, and ‘Play’ - by David Truss
Logos: Inquiry Hub, Coquitlam Open Learning, & SD43 are all from School District 43, Coquitlam.