Our classrooms, much
like society at large, operate under a type of social contract, whereby
teachers and students make a type of implicit agreement. The teacher
agrees that she / he will work to foster the growth of student learning in
exchange for the student’s willingness to participate and learn. It’s an
agreement that we rarely state explicitly, but it is the foundation of much
that we do. When the contract breaks down, teachers assume that students
are not willing to play their part or students assume that the teacher is not
providing a meaningful or relevant learning experience.
Inquiry learning
strengthens that social contract by bolstering both the teacher (who is
responsible for generating the inquiry) and the student (who must seek the answer
to the question). Under an inquiry model, teachers guide students
on inquiries that relate to the lives of students and the immediate world
around them. And students in turn, come to trust that short term sacrifices
they make will be for long term benefits.
Challenging students with
questions and tasks that not only keep them interested and involved but that also relate to their lives and experiences, strengthens
the bonds of our contract. It sends a message to our students that we do
care about them, and we are interested in the question and concerns that
drive them. This philosophy is at the root of inquiry learning and is the
predominant reason I believe it holds promise for our classrooms today.
As Banchi and Bell
(2008) have suggested, inquiry learning can take on many different looks:
confirmation inquiry, structured inquiry, guided inquiry and open
inquiry. Essentially, they define inquiries by four components: the
question, the process and the answer. So for example, a confirmed inquiry
is one where the teacher provides the question (most likely without the input
of students), they provide the process for answering the question, and they
have a predetermined answer they want students to know. Structured
inquiry involves a predetermined question and process provided by the teacher,
but not an answer. In fact, these inquiries typically do not have a
specific or correct answer. In a guided inquiry, the teacher provides the
questions and the students must both determine the process and the answer on
their own. While, an open inquiry is a learning environment where
students design their own units of inquiry, their own process for discovering
that information, and their own answers to their questions.
Another model, which would
be a hybrid of the open and structure inquiries, allows
students to help construct the inquiry or guiding question. They work
together to determine the type of inquiry they want, while the teacher offers a
structure for the process of researching, a skill that many younger students do
not possess. Again, the answer would be open ended and might have many
different potential answers.
As you design your
units, think about how that unit might be resituated as a more general
question. Can it be linked to something timely that might help students
connect with it or understand it. Wilhelm (2007) offers numerous examples
of how one might reframe topics as questions.
Industrial Arts:
What makes a good house?
Civics: What is
a responsible community?
Government: Is
it ever right to resist an established government?
Biology: How
does flight influence and change behavior (for birds, for humans)?
Physics: How can
we create the best device for seeing in the dark?
Whatever the model
that one chooses, inquiry holds promise as a way of recasting the learning
experience. It challenges, yet again, the “transmission” model of
learning (where teachers serve as the transmitters of knowledge) and
repositions curiosity and collaboration as the true motivators within the classroom.
