Inquiry-Based Learning

The Winter 2008 issue of Harvard Educational Review contains an interesting article by Pat Clifford and Susan Marinucci on Inquiry-based Learning.  Here is the abstract from the publisher:

In this Voices Inside Schools essay, Dr. Pat Clifford and Susan Marinucci take us inside a classroom engaged in “genuine inquiry.” As we follow Russell and his fellow fifth-grade scientists through their exploration of desalination, we witness the evolving nature of questioning, learning, and understanding in spaces of inquiry. The authors offer insights into three central issues: (1) the character of genuine questions for inquiry; (2) intellectual rigor as students grapple with real ideas in real ways; and (3) how inquiry can be adapted to meet the requirements of mandated curricula.

The article does an excellent job of explaining the nature of Inquiry-based Learning as a teaching method and addresses many of the common reasons for resistance to this method, such as the concern that it will not meet curriculum standards, that there is not enough time, or that the class will get away from the teacher’s control.

Inquiry demands a particular relationship to curriculum that is not well understood by teaches who are frustrated by abstract definitions and vague talk about following students’ interests.  Teachers also tend to have little flexibility in terms of curriculum topics they have to cover with their students.  Or. perhaps more accurately, they feel they have little room to stretch and flex.  Such perceived restrictions come from at least two fundamental misconceptions.  The first common misconception is that outlined learner expectations set the ceiling, rather than the floor, for student understanding.  The second confusion arises because many teachers assume that textbooks and the curriculum are one and the same; this, covering the course becomes synonymous with covering the textbooks.

I have found Inquiry-based Learning to be a wonderful tool in my classroom.  For starters, I was able to include everyone by allowing different students to contribute in different ways and build upon their individual previous knowledge. 

In classrooms engaged in genuine inquiry, the topic is broad enough so that everyone – teachers, students, and experts in the discipline – can find a place to make meaningful contributions to the topic itself and to further their own understanding of the topic.

Furthermore, students with different talents are able to learn from each other and create a community of knowledge.

Genuine inquiries demand that understanding develops in a public space in which each person’s abilities, interests, perspectives, and talents help move everyone else’s thinking forward.  It is a knowledge-building space in which ideas are at the center, and each individual has a commitment to producing the collective, evolving understanding.

Another unfortunate misconception of the approach is that it will be too difficult for children to chart their own course of learning, that they need the rigidity of a set verbatim curriculum, or that they are too intellectually immature for it to be effective.  Clifford and Marinucci had this to say:

When classroom lessons and experiments are carefully scripted in advance, students miss the opportunity to orient themselves intellectually to new spaces.  They become good at following directions but less skilled at moving effectively through the fluid, ambiguous spaces where real problems, issues, and new ideas are forged.  Inquiry demands an orientation to what matters… Less rigorous approaches to inquiry, which privilege the children’s questions and interests simply because they are the children’s, can quickly degenerate into sentimental practice that shies away from thorny conversations about whether mistakes are being made or misconceptions overlooked… Students trained in the habits of inquiry have much less fear that making a mistake revels their own personal ignorance and are much more interested in the quality of their thinking, part of which involves a commitment to rigor on behalf of the topic.  Uncovering error becomes a way to learn.

Although my students were adults, this approach was first used with preschool children as part of the Reggio Emilia Approach in the 1940′s.  This is an exciting and effective way to teach, and to learn, that produces independent thinkers capable of directing their own studies and solving problems that are not always provided in the context of the textbook.  In short, it prepares students for the real world and should be investigated more.

Citation

Clifford, P., & Marinucci, S. J. (2008). Testing the water: Three elements of classroom inquiry. Harvard Educational Review, Voices Inside Schools, 78(4), 675-688.

Further Reading

• Edutopia – How do your students help shape their education?
• Wikipedia entry on Inquiry-based learning
• Wikipedia entry on Reggio Emilia Approach
• Preschool Students Guide Curriculum in The Jewish Journal

Technorati Tags: curriculum, teaching methods