What is IBL?

What does IBL stand for? Inquiry Based Learning.

So what is IBL? It´s often easier to describe IBL in terms of what it´s not. It´s not sitting in a cosy lecture theatre being spoon-fed information. It´s about thinking outside the box, creating new and exciting ideas to enhance your learning process. This approach enables independent, original thinking, giving you marketable and useful skills that can be applied in the outside world.

It is more than likely that you have experienced IBL as part of your degree program without even realising it. Some modules on your course may be entirely centred on IBL with specific aims and tasks. However, other degrees may incorporate IBL more subtly in your seminars, tutorials, laboratory or field work.

CILASS exists because the Higher Education Funding Council for England has recognised existing excellence in IBL at the University of Sheffield, awarding it a Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. Based on the first floor of the Information Commons, the CILASS centre works to promote and improve IBL within the Arts and Social Sciences.

CILASS is working with staff to locate IBL as an essential pivot between teaching methods and students' learning/response, making IBL the heart that beats beneath the University experience.