The most obvious drawback to inquiry-based instruction is that the skills and knowledge of the teachers engaging in the alternate form of instruction are not correctly developed. Many teachers don't fully understand what inquiry-based learning is, or how to provide proper scaffolding, assessment, and redirection when using this approach. Without the proper guidance by the instructor, students can suffer from a myriad of factors - the primary one being a lack of experience with the inquiry-based approach. Students who are taught using this method, without any prior knowledge regarding meaningful learning or self-motivated evaluation, can suffer greatly at the shift in content. Without an instructor to ease this process, and find a way to integrate the students' past learning experiences into "meaningful learning", students can become frustrated by the seemingly loose structure of the approach.
Inquiry-based instruction is student-centered. Students have to create their own questions, critically analyze their decisions, and take creative approaches to solving problems. So much of this process relies on the ability of the student alone, and the students in small groups, that it would seem the instructor's role is diminished - this is not so. Posing the right types of questions and problems, and guiding the students to make meaningful connections between their projects and concepts is crucial to the success of this approach. I think a good metaphor is a controlled wildfire. Students are collaborating and sharing ideas and developing solutions all at different rates and through different responses. The teacher has to keep theses response in check, that is, ensure that the focus remains on the topic and that the conclusions model actual classroom content standards. If that invisible boundary isn't there to set students back on track or funnel them towards a specific type of conclusion, then the students will complete the project, but not reap the benefits of gaining actual knowledge.
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