Project outline

Enquiry Based Learning (EBL)

Welcome to the Enquiry Based Learning (EBL) undergraduate student project in the Learning and Teaching Centre. During a four week period in summer 2007, the centre hosted a summer projects office for seven undergraduate students from different disciplines and years all studying at the University of Glasgow.

The project was to explore EBL and was approached as an EBL exercise with the student group being in charge of the process and the outcome was to develop a guide for staff and students about EBL.  During the academic year 2007/08 we will work alongside a member of staff from our departments to develop discipline specific EBL activities.

These pages have been developed mainly as a staff resource about EBL, but some parts may also be relevant to students to assist them in their learning. We have included an introduction to EBL, examples of EBL in practice and links to further reading. There is a section on the teacher’s role in EBL, as well as a copy of Staff and Student Guides for you to download. Each group member has given a personal account of their experience of the project, to give a first-hand picture of what learning by EBL encompasses.

The EBL project is funded by the Chancellor’s Fund and HEA Biosciences and headed by the Academic Development Unit within the Learning and Teaching Centre.

The following explanation is our amalgamation of the shared principles of Enquiry Based Learning from many different definitions within the literature:

Through Enquiry Based Learning (EBL) students direct their own acquisition of knowledge through active investigation.  EBL develops the ability to question, a skill central to academic research. It also develops many other life-long learning skills which have applications in everyday life.  In EBL the role of staff is to guide and support the students’ learning process. 

It is a flexible approach which lends itself to individual and group work and is adaptable to a huge range of teaching and learning situations. There is a resulting emphasis on the process of learning as well as on the end product.

Project team