Section 3 Table of Contents Classroom Examples Copyright Evergreen Curriculum Section 5





Humans are driven by inquiry. They have a need to know. As teachers, we are surrounded by curious students who are constantly asking questions. Our ultimate goal is to develop in our students the knowledge, abilities, attitudes and processes necessary to discover the answers to their questions, to develop other questions and to enter the world of life-long learning.


Definition

Inquiry learning provides opportunities for students to experience and acquire processes through which they can gather information about the world. This requires a high Level of interaction among the learner, the teacher, the area of study, available resources, and the learning environment. Students become actively involved in the learning process as they:

Questioning is the heart of inquiry learning. Students must ask relevant questions and develop ways to search for answers and generate explanations. Emphasis is placed upon the process of thinking as students interact with issues, data, topics, concepts, materials and problems.

Divergent thinking is encouraged and nurtured as students recognize that questions often have more than one "good" or "correct" answer. Such thinking leads in many instances to the development of additional questions. In this way, students come to the realization that knowledge may not be fixed and permanent but may be tentative, emergent, and open to questioning and alternative hypotheses.


Inductive Inquiry

The information-seeking process of the inductive inquiry approach helps students to establish facts, determine relevant questions, develop ways to pursue these questions and build explanations. Students are invited to develop and support their own hypotheses. Through inductive inquiry, students experience the thought processes which require them to move from specific facts and observations to inferences. To help students accomplish this, the teacher selects a set of events or materials for the lesson. The student reacts and attempts to construct a meaningful pattern based on personal observations and the observations of others. Students generally have some kind of theoretical frame when they begin inductive inquiry. The teacher encourages students to share their thoughts so that the entire class can benefit from individual insights.

Students move through five phases in an inductive inquiry (adapted from Joyce & Weil, 1986):

  1. Student curiosity is aroused and focused. The teacher or a student may invite the inquiry (e.g., "Here is a great book about . . . ") or a problem, dilemma or discrepant event may be presented by the teacher, a student or another source (e.g., Diagrams of the teeth and jaw bones of a cow, a horse, a coyote, a dog, a beaver, an elephant, and a human are given to students. The question asked is "Why are the teeth and jaw structures so different?").

  2. Information to assist in answering questions sparked by curiosity or in revolving a dilemma is gathered and verified (e.g., students ask yes-no questions).

  3. Causal relationships (hypotheses) are developed, clarified and tested as students "experiment" with isolated aspects of the topic which may contribute to "answering" the question or "solving" the problem (e.g., In the "jaw" example, students might suspect that the type of food eaten explains the differences. Through research, this can be tested).

  4. Information is organized and used to formulate and construct a clear explanation, conclusion or generalization regarding the topic (e.g., Students make statements such as: "Flesh-eating animals have sharp, pointed teeth for tearing flesh and killing prey").

  5. The inquiry learning process is analyzed and discussed (e.g., "Which questions were effective in helping you to reach your conclusion?").

The inductive inquiry is a disciplined way to seek, information as students question why events happen, acquire and process information logically and develop strategies to discover why things are the way they are.

The following list overviews the assumptions and conditions considered important for an inductive inquiry to take place:

  1. The inductive inquiry is initiated and facilitated by the teacher who is responsible for instructing students on inquiry procedures, selecting and posing the inquiry topic Problem (at least initially) and maintaining the open, supportive climate necessary for students to develop, test and share their hypotheses.

  2. During the information gathering and verification stage, questions must be phrased by students to elicit a "yes" or "no" response from the teacher. In reality, other types of teacher responses are often necessary. These responses should be to encourage or ask questions which direct the students' inquiry not to provide answers, thereby depriving students of engaging fully in the inquiry process.

  3. Students may ask as many questions as they like before giving up the "'floor" to other students.

  4. During the hypothesis development phase, the teacher does not answer "yes" or "no" questions about theory statements but encourages students to test their hypotheses. In this way, students learn the difference between verifiable facts and defendable statements about causal relationships (i.e., hypotheses).

  5. Students may test or challenge their hypothesis or those of others at any time. The test may take the form of an experiment investigative reading or other procedure.

  6. Students are encouraged to confer with one another to discuss and develop explanations and hypotheses.

  7. It is essential that a variety of resources relating to the problem be made available to the students.

    Introductory Techniques. The following techniques can introduce students to inductive inquiry situations.

Warm Ups are short practice exercises that prime Students for inquiry activities. "Twenty questions" involves students asking yes-no questions to solve a riddle or puzzle. "Public interviews" requires the class to interview and ask questions of one member of the class concerning that individual's personal life or class; experience. The interviewee has the option to "pass" on any question. Incomplete sentences (e.g., "My most exciting holiday was ...") can be used to involve individual students or the whole class in a warm up activity.

Student Questions involves an "ask me about . . . " approach to a topic. After introducing a topic, the teacher invites the students to take responsibility for how the lesson develops by asking questions of the teacher (e.g., after bringing a puppy into the classroom, the teacher may say, "ask me questions about puppies" and begin a unit on mammals with a Grade two class). Students can be invited to introduce and lead these question-answer sessions when such opportunities arise.

Examples and Non-examples of a concept can be presented to students. Encourage students to predict the concept under investigation and ask yes-no questions to-verify and test their ideas. This can be combined with "Hangman" where students are given blank spaces that match the concept name or can be embedded in a webbing activity which includes "What we know" and "What we need to find out".

Class Discussions introduced by open-ended or divergent questions can stimulate a range of activities from teacher-directed interactions to interaction with everyone asking questions and offering perspectives.

Solving Problems of any kind sets the stage for and develops interest in the general mechanics of problem solving. Scientific problem solving (i.e., using the scientific method), creative problem solving (i.e., viewing old problems from a different angle) and value laden problem solving (i.e., using a rational basis for examining moral questions) provide excellent vehicles to encourage student inquiry.

Suitable Laboratory Exercises, ones in which something is held back - either the- answers or directions or both - require students to ask questions, form hypotheses and discover what has been omitted.

Class Demonstrations, ones where the teacher does not tell all, can move students into inquiry learning. The teacher does the demonstration and provides clues to help students recognize and find regularities and solutions that fit the demonstration.

Individualized Study Assignments and Co-operative Group Research can become inquiry activities which are focused and meaningful for the students. Any of the ideas outlined previously can become individual or group inquiry assignments designed to expand on what students have already learned and to integrate new insights with prior experiences and knowledge. There should be opportunities for students to experience insightful moments when they see for themselves how something works or what the solution to the problem could be. Students should be encouraged to access school library services and other sources of information in the Community and beyond to verify their hypotheses.


Deductive Inquiry

The focus in deductive inquiry is on moving students from a generalized principle to specific instances that may be subsumed logically within the generalization. The process of testing the generalized assumptions, applying them and exploring the relationships between specific elements is stressed. The teacher co-ordinates the information and presents important principles, themes or hypotheses. Students are actively engaged in testing generalizations, gathering information and applying it to specific examples. Deductive inquiry is based upon the logical assimilation and processing of information.

Students move through four steps in a deductive inquiry²:

  1. The teacher presents the generalization or concept using an advance organizer to visually represent all of the component parts. This becomes a framework upon which students can build their understandings and connect with their prior learnings. See Figure 4.3 for an example of an advance organizer for a series of Grade 10 Geometry lessons.

  2. Each isolated element is discussed and its unique characteristics are highlighted to make the concept or generalization meaningful for students.

  3. Students are provided with a variety of examples of the specific elements of the generalization. They are asked to seek out similarities and differences in an attempt to understand relationships among the specific elements and between the elements and the generalization.

  4. Students generate their own examples relating the new information to their prior experiences and understanding. This provides feedback as to how well students have acquired the generalization or concept.

The steps need not be sequential. Students may want to suggest examples immediately after the generalization has been explained or the explanation may lead directly into a discussion of similarities and differences among the component parts before all elements have been introduced. This flexibility stresses an important aspect of deductive inquiry. Deductive inquiry should not be confused with lecturing. It can stimulate as such student-student and student-teacher interaction as inductive inquiry.


Conclusion

Ideally, we want students to take increased responsibility for their own education, to discover and learn through their own activities and not only through teacher-planned and directed activities. We are living through an incredible and unprecedented knowledge explosion. If we combine this with the complex economic, social and political issues our world faces, one conclusion is obvious. We must graduate students who can think for themselves and who view education as a process and not merely a product. We must develop students who want to learn, who know how to learn and who are adept problem solvers. These are the students for whom inquiry learning is designed.


Reflective Checklist: Inquiry Learning

The following questions may be useful when planning to use inquiry learning in your classroom. However, it is acknowledged that there are other questions which could guide this process. You are encouraged to build on these questions which are useful and to develop others which better suit your purposes.

What purposes will be addressed?

1. To develop students understanding of the unit under study and related areas

2. To actively involve students in their own learning

3. To support students' development as critical and creative thinkers

4. To support students' development as independent learners


Classroom Example: Inductive Inquiry


Classroom Example: Deductive Inquiry


Practical Resources* and References

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  1. The major proponent/developer of the inquiry learning method is J. Richard Suchman (1986) in the Inquiry Training Model. Similar methods are put forth by J.J. Schwab (1965) in the Biological Science Inquiry Model and B. Massiola and B. Cox (1966) in the Social Inquiry Model. The description presented here is a synthesis of these and other models.

  2. Based on the work of David P. Ausubel (1968) and Paul D. Eggen, et al. (1979).


    Section 3 Table of Contents Classroom Examples Copyright Evergreen Curriculum Section 5