I am writing a post about inquiry-based learning.
This learning method is more targeted. Instructors do not need to teach everything to the learners. Learners read the learning materials and ask questions. The instructors teach them according to their questions and the part of knowledge that they don’t understand. Each learner’s comprehension ability and advantages are different, so the difficult contents each one finds are also different. If it is a direct instruction, some learners may think they are wasting time because they already understand what they are teaching. Other learners may think that the explanation is not detailed enough. This results in a waste of instructors’ resources and learners’ time.
Nonetheless, inquiry-based learning is only suitable for small classes. Imagine a class with hundreds of people, there is no way for the instructors to teach all students based on their questions. There is too much work load and is less efficient than direct instruction.
Overall, I think inquiry-based learning is more effective in small-class instruction but not suitable for big classes.