50 Ways to Inquiry

 BY ALAVINA
 
 POSTED ON MARCH 27, 2019

Is inquiry synonymous with research? This was only one of many questions that a
group of teachers had as they explored what inquiry is. 

They shared some examples.

Example 1
Learners are given some factual questions to answer around a unit’s concepts. The
questions are designed to bring out the students’ prior knowledge, and they are all
teacher-generated. The sessions for the week involve choosing sources from a bank
of teacher-provided texts, to find answers to the questions.

Example 2
A teacher assigns a text to read to a whole class. Students have found that they have
more questions after reading the text. They bring questions to class and share these
with everyone. The teacher asks students to write their questions on a chart paper
pinned to a classroom wall. They will spend the next few days gathering resources
and synthesizing what they learn. 

Example 3

A class is learning about change in societies through revolution. A learner thinks

about the patterns of revolutions, and asks if technology use in global context is a
form of revolution. The teacher paraphrases the student, and provokes further
thinking by asking, “What makes you say that the rise of technology assisted life is a
revolution?”

Example 4

A student notices that muffins are super sweet, and although he likes them, he
wonders if there is a way to make them with healthier ingredients. He looks up
bakeries in his city and calls to make appointments to talk to the bakers.

The teachers found that all of the above is inquiry-based learning. Out of these
examples, the last one implies a full inquiry cycle. So the question they next asked is,
Is it inquiry if it’s not part of an inquiry cycle?

When a team of teachers attended Kath Murdoch’s workshop some years ago, we
looked at inquiry within a cycle for younger students in the Primary Years. We
realized that our primary students would benefit from the structure of a cycle,
with clear phases or stages, and that primary teachers would also appreciate using the
inquiry cycle as a scaffolded process. Additionally, the cycle could be made visible
on the walls both as guidance for the process and to keep track of students’ thinking.
The primary teachers were happy to create a school-specific inquiry cycle. 

The secondary teachers who taught both middle and high school had a question
about following a cycle. As students progressed through the middle years and up,
they become more independent, able to explain individual processes that they feel
are strong elements in their repertoire of approaches to learning. Secondary teachers
felt that their students, depending on their facility with inquiry, may not need the
structure of a single inquiry cycle to follow.

Is it inquiry if it’s not explicitly following an inquiry cycle?

This may sound like a simple question to answer because we can reduce it to a Yes or
No answer and be done with it. Answering with a single word doesn’t address some of
the questions of teachers who are entering into inquiry and trying to implement an
inquiry approach to learning into their practice.

The answer we came to together in the secondary school was that learning that uses
the inquiry approach does not have to follow a cycle, necessarily. We can
implement the inquiry approach in day to day lessons. This is what characterizes
inquiry as an approach rather than a lock-step process to follow religiously. 

We also found that the process of inquiry may not be a sequential one. As the
secondary teachers became more comfortable with the approaching learning through
inquiry, they noticed that individual students would follow their pace in
asynchronous, non-sequential ways. For example, this is one student’s process,
below.
One student’s (non-linear) process of following a line of inquiry.

The student did not follow a linear process, but came back to reformulate a question in
the middle of the process as she investigated one line of inquiry.

The asynchronous process of inquiry for individual students implies that it is

differentiated and personal. Each student is able to approach learning in his or her
pace and process.

The summary of what secondary school teachers learned about approaching learning
through inquiry with their students taught them these valuable ideas:

 Inquiry is non-sequential learning.

 It is asynchronous for individuals in a group of learners.
 It can be personal and differentiated.
 It can shift to being learner-driven.
 Inquiry is not necessarily or essentially learning following a cycle, and a cycle
can guide inquiry.

As the secondary teachers grew more comfortable with the idea that inquiry was not
only following an inquiry cycle and is an approach to learning, they shared what
worked in their classrooms with the group.
Here are 50 ways that the group of secondary teachers used to enter inquiry in their
classrooms. 

1. Teach the question formulation technique

Learning how to ask effective questions is a skill central to the inquiry approach.
Explicitly teaching question formulation can lead to facility in creating questions, and
approaching learning in this way.

2. Object based inquiry

In an inquiry in Individuals and Societies, a teacher asked students to bring objects

from home, which they used to activate prior knowledge of the ways ideas travel from
culture to culture, sparking changes as the idea immigrated to a new culture. 

3. Shift perspective

A useful question to ask was, How might thinking change from a different frame of
thought? Exploring different frames of thinking about a particular text or event or era
transferred from one subject group to another.

4. Take sides and take sides again

Critical thinking skills deepened when learners considered arguments or theses from
opposite or different sides.

5. Bring an example of a mentor text

Learners brought in examples of texts that demonstrated concepts or skills. 

6. Deconstruct an example

Groups analyzed the examples of texts they brought in, making visible the concepts or
skills these texts demonstrated effectively. This led to an inquiry using the language of
quality (criteria) to discern how different text types achieve successful production.

7. Design different entry points

How might you approach this problem? was a question, which allowed secondary
learners to identify and use approaches each considered a way in to learning. Some
chose numerical facts, others chose humanistic approaches, historical, and other entry
points to learning.

8. The show and tell reboot

Bring an artifact and host a Socratic seminar was one group’s approach to their line of
inquiry. The artifact could be an object, a literary text, a non-literary text, or other
item.
9. Video provocation

For a unit on creativity, students created a bank of videos exploring all dimensions of
creativity and used it to consolidate their personal lines of inquiry.

10. Song and lyrics

For concept formation and attainment, students chose a song that they rewrote to
illustrate a concept, after completing a Frayers Model of the concept.

11. Playlist

Learners created a playlist of songs illustrating the Learner Profile in their personal
identity.

12. Paintings

In an exploration of what it means to be human, learners shared a painting that

represented their conception. 

13. Diagramming

Groups created diagrams of the relationships between a global context and a unit’s
related concepts.

14. Numbers and facts

Some students chose to create infographics, a non-literary text, which synthesizes

numbers and facts from a number of resources into one representation. The
infographics allowed students to compare and contrast receptive behaviors of readers
of prose versus ‘readers’ of non-literary, 21st century texts and led to questions about
what it means to be literate.

15. Contrast

In a unit using the concept of revolutions to inquire into how social change manifests,
learners used the skill of making unusual connections between ideas through contrast.
By examining patterns of texts before a change and after a change, learners were able
to find how social change begins with shifting perceptions people have about cost and
benefit.

16. Similarities and differences

MYP 1 students learned how to organize writing comparing two elements through a
Venn Diagram.

17. Comparisons of language use

MYP 4 and 5 students from 15 different countries compared how mathematics
concepts are expressed through words and inquired into what implications this
variation has on how they understand and use mathematics to communicate.

18. Analogies

Analogies were used to express thinking and emotion in an explicit lesson drawing out
social and emotional skills.

19. Taxonomies – shoes for classification lesson in science

A MYP 2 class took off their shoes, put them in a pile, and randomly chose a number
of them as their materials for a classification and taxonomy task. They had to use the
shoes they received as a data set to create a taxonomy of the concept ‘shoe’ complete
with morphology, traits and behavioral expressions.

20. Taxonomies – puzzle

To assess understanding of a system, students were given a set of system concepts,

which they had already met. The task was to classify the concepts into a
representation of their relationships, and to self-assess their own understanding of the
conceptual frame.

21. Haptics

To explore learning through feel (or touch) and movement, a golf team spent practice
sessions with partners, taking turns swinging at a ball blindfolded. The seeing partner
placed the ball on the ground and helped the blindfolded partner set his or her clubface
in the right position. Then the seeing partner moved out of the way and told the
blindfolded partner to swing. This strategy was used by the students to find out how it
feels like to hit good or not-so-effective shots and whether or not it allowed them to
develop a ‘feel’ in their golf swings.

22. Symbols

In a study of social behavior and organization, learners explored the symbols found in
different places in the city – the shopping mall, the neighborhood, the streets, schools,
hospitals, offices, banks, parks. They inquired into universal symbols and place-
specific symbols and were provoked to ask questions about meaning and function of
symbolism.

23. Simulations

A class simulated a market place for services or goods, to consolidate understanding

about market forces, design and consumer experience.

24. Experiments
A group of students designed an experiment using medieval weapon design to learn
about levers. They made catapults, trebuchet and ballista out of light wood to explore
the concept of force and motion.

25. Treasure hunts

The librarian and the counselor designed a skills treasure hunt in which students had
to find and name research and emotional skills used in the process of completing a
service learning project.

26. Games

A PHE class played a game in which they had to capture a stuffed toy animal with
constraints in the behaviors of the group, to learn about the value of communication
and leadership/followership in invasive games and team games.

27. Point of view

Groups of learners took on various points of view in the building of the Three Gorges
Dam. Through the roles of villager, politician, engineer, journalist, and other roles,
learners explored how point of view influences opinion and choices.

28. All about it 

Using the video model of how a pencil is created, learners explored the

interdependence of global entities using a commonplace object.

29. Sensory input 

Students ate berries and wrote observations of the experience to enter understanding
of the poem “Eating blackberries” by Galway Kinnell.

30. Different senses

Learners used senses to observe an everyday occurrence in their neighborhood.

Observations were written down and shared, eliciting questions from classmates on
function, purpose and meaning of social behaviors.

31. Jigsaw sentences

Language acquisition students created sentence puzzles for other classmates to put
together. The group then dialogued on patterns in sentence composition and how order
and function of words in the basic written language unit of a sentence reflected how
that culture perceived reality. 

32. One minute pitch for a skill

Learners developed one-minute pitches or elevator speeches for a skill and why it is
essential to the task.

33. Soundtrack for a concept

Groups developed a soundtrack for a concept in science , if that concept were a movie.
Groups had to justify the choice of music and explain its value using music
terminology.

34. Graphic representation of text

As part of reading a text, students developed a cartoon strip showing the significant
ideas of the text. They also chose quotes from the text as captions for each frame.

35. Six word memoir

To capture a learning takeaway, students wrote six-word memoirs from the concept’s
point of view.

36. Six frame cartoon strip

Instead of a six-word memoir, students in example 35 could choose to draw a six-

frame cartoon to express their takeaway.

37. Question corner (Wonder wall)

A class maintained a question corner to keep track of their wonderings. (Strategy

learned from Kath Murdoch.)

38. Assumptions wall

This strategy from Thinking Collaborative’s Adaptive Schools was useful for IB

Diploma students who were examining their own assumptions about what’s worth
learning.

39. Draw a process

To make visible a skill, learners chose to diagram their own approach to learning
using that skill.

40. Match my descriptor

Learners brought in examples of one descriptor for different levels of achievement of

that descriptor. The class created a bank of examples and used these as models for
their own approach to a task.

41. de Bono’s Six hats musical chairs

This is de Bono’s strategy of using varying points of view to plumb an issue. The
variation a class used was to play ‘musical six hats,’ switching hats for each Socratic
seminar over a six-day lesson, allowing students to have different experiences of
framing their thinking around the issues presented by the unit of inquiry.

42. Peer coaching musical chairs

In a PHE class learning through badminton, trios of students took on roles each week,
rotating the roles of coach, player and observer. Coaches had to teach a skill to the
player, who had to perform it. Observers noted coaching behaviors and player
progress according to the criteria for the skill, which the coach taught to the player for
that lesson. 

43. Observation stations

An art class learning the function of observation in drawing chose observation stations
around the school campus. Observers took journal notes and sketches on the elements
present at each place. Notes and sketches were discussed as a large group, focusing on
the value of detailed observation in production. The reflection asked the students to
assess how they might use the skills of observation to create art pieces.

44. Skill Triads

Similar to example 42, students in Individuals and societies took on the roles of
facilitator, observer and active participants for skills used in action planning.
Facilitators had the job of ‘keeping the process going,’ participants had to put ideas on
the table and engage in the dialog, and observers took notes on how the group
performed the skills as they went through the process of working together. 

45. 2-4-8

To gain consensus and shared understanding, first individual learners were asked to
note their responses to a prompt. Then the singles paired up and shared their ideas,
and asked to come up with a synthesis of the two. Pairs then shared with other pairs
and synthesized ideas into a common idea. The quartets then met up with other
quartets, repeating the same process. 

46. 3-2-1

This is a strategy commonly adapted to different purposes. An example might be:

 3 ideas that resonated with you

 2 ideas that were new learnings
 1 question 

47. Corners
This is also a common strategy. Four concepts or statements are placed in different
corners of the room. Learners are asked to choose the idea that they agree with and go
to that corner. The large group classifies itself into idea groups. Groups are asked to
discuss and justify why they chose the idea of a particular corner. A large group
discussion may arise as result of sharing the justifications.

48. True or false

Used as a review or formative assessment, the facilitator presents statements

expressing ideas from the previous lesson. Groups have to say if the statement is True
or False, and provide a justification for why they say so. This may also provoke a
robust discussion on the previously-learned concept(s).

49. Sculpting relationships

Using a family therapy strategy learned from Maria Gomori, a family therapy
specialist who uses the Satir model of change. A class applied one strategy from the
Satir system of ‘sculpting relationships’ to our study of the characters and
relationships in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. By sculpting the relationships using
relative position, distance, height, and posture, learners acquired depth of
understanding on the novel’s central conflicts and themes.

50. Dossier

This is a long-term application of numbers 5 and 6, and a strategy useful for gaining
an overview of a series of exemplars of specific performances. The dossier is an
adaptation of a IB Diploma Language B strategy. 

To complete a dossier, learners need to gather exemplars of a product, for example a

text type. Texts are instructive in different subject groups, not just in the Language
and literature and Language acquisition subjects. For examples, Design has the text
type of the design brief; Science has the lab report; Mathematics has the investigation;
PHE has the plan for a performance; Arts have the developmental journal; Individuals
and societies have action plans. 

Students may find exemplars from professional contexts, and analyze these,
effectively deconstructing the elements and features of the text type. Learners may
add their own products to the collection. The dossier is a useful resource and the
process of creating one is itself a protracted inquiry into the tools, skills, and concepts
that make up a body of knowledge within a discipline. 

Conclusion

I have been fortunate to have had daily opportunities to ‘search for butterflies’ a term I
use to speak about the transformational qualities of learners who look for new ways of
approaching learning, and in the process transform themselves as learners. These are
some strategies I’ve seen teachers and students use to approach learning through
inquiry.