Profiling an inquiry-based teacher in a technology-intensive open learning environment

The aim of this study was to investigate how teacher learning and leadership styles, creativity and attitudes toward technology impact on middle school students' engagement and efficacy in inquiry-based learning (IBL). The role of the teacher in such a setting differs from traditional teaching approaches, and requires pedagogies and context mapping that foster students' construction of their knowledge through inquiry, exploring, explaining, modelling, expanding and finding their own path to effective solution. For the purpose of this study, a 3-year pedagogical experiment in an IBL technology-intensive open learning course was used. From 2013 to 2015, fifteen middle schools around Slovenia were involved and six inquiry-based teachers were profiled. Effective data from 232 participants were collected and subjected to a two-way ANOVA and multiple regression analysis. The results indicated that an activist teacher with a laissez-faire leadership style, cluster thinking and of high creativity as an accommodator significantly affects students' engagement in IBL and impacts on the development of students' technological literacy. © 2016 WIETE.