Our 5-year experiment with teaching and evaluating an inquiry course has led us to conclude that inquiry is a potent pedagogical tool in higher education, encouraging students to become self-directed and engaged learners. This article offers key ingredients and procedures for designing an inquiry-based course. It provides a pragmatic model of inquiry that describes the structure and function of such a course and the goals and learning objectives for students. This model of inquiry is widely applicable and will help faculty members from a variety of disciplines develop an innovative way of engaging and teaching students.
Inquiry-based learning is one approach to improving the quality of undergraduate education by moving toward more student-directed, interactive methods of learning while focusing on learning how to learn. This paper deals with a missing component in the inquiry-related literature-the extra-pedagogical challenges of introducing and maintaining inquiry-based learning in the curriculum. Based in the collective experience of McMaster University, a mid-size Canadian university that has been a pioneer in inquiry pedagogy, the paper describes the challenges administrators faced in supporting the introduction of inquiry-based learning as components of traditional courses, as inquirybased courses, and as inquiry-based degree programs. Derived from interviews, the paper presents a series of strategies and lessons for introducing and maintaining inquiry pedagogy in the curriculum. These lessons will be broadly useful to administrators, curriculum designers and faculty developers and should be widely applicable to institutes of higher education.
Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities requires states to ensure that disabled people can choose where and with whom they live with access to a range of services including personal assistance. Based on qualitative research of the implementation of Article 19 in Nordic countries, this paper focuses on Sweden, which was at the forefront of implementing personal assistance law and policy and has been the inspiration for many European countries. Instead of strengthening access to personal assistance, this study found that since the Swedish government ratified the Convention in 2008, there has been an increase in the numbers of people losing state-funded personal assistance and an increase in rejected applications. This paper examines the reasons for the deterioration of eligibility criteria for accessing personal assistance in Sweden. The findings shed light on how legal and administrative interpretations of "basic needs" are shifting from a social to a medical understanding. They also highlight a shift from collaborative policy making towards conflict, where courts have become the battleground for defining eligibility criteria. Drawing on the findings, we ask if Sweden is violating its obligations under the Convention.
This paper examines the process under way in Iceland to align national law with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, focusing on the Convention's call for the active involvement of disabled people and their representative organizations in policy and decision making on matters that affect them. The paper draws on comments submitted by Icelandic DPOs on draft legislation intended to replace the existing law on services for disabled people, focusing on comments relating to their ability to participate in and affect the policymaking process. Furthermore, it draws on interviews with leaders of representative organizations of disabled people that solicited their views on the issue. The findings indicate that there is a reluctance on behalf of Icelandic authorities to make changes to the established process, which limits the active participation of disabled people and their representative organizations. The draft legislation has neither been revised to include provisions for expanding the participation of DPOs in policy and decision making, nor to ensure that disabled people themselves participate in the process.
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