Inquiry

An inquiry-based approach is driven by students’ curiosity about the world around them. It encourages connection, co-operation, and collaboration by allowing students to pose and solve problems together and with their communities in shared, authentic learning experiences

Action

• What is it we hope students will come to understand more deeply through this inquiry?
• What knowledge might they need to help them to move towards this understanding?
  
• What is it we hope students will be able to do more competently?
  
• What learning dispositions will this inquiry help students practice and develop further?
  
• What do the learners want and need to learn and do?
  
• What do students reveal to us in initial conversations? What are the big ideas?
  
• Why is it worth doing this inquiry?
  
• How can we connect this with the lives of students?
  
• What do we know/ think/ believe about this topic?

Tuning In

• What are you wondering?
  
• When you see this (provocation) what does it make you think?
  
• What does this remind you of in your own life?
  
• What connections can you make?
  
• What do you already think/ feel/ know about this?
• What questions or puzzles do you have about this inquiry?
  
• What do we need to know or think more about?
  
• Why might this be worth learning about?
• How might we explore these wonderings and puzzles further?

Finding Out

• What would be the best way to find out more? Who could we ask? How might we go about asking them?
• What is this information telling us?
• How does this connect to what you already know? How do we know if the information is reliable or not?
• How can we check this?
• Where has this information come from?
• How is this making you feel?
• What skills will we need to use?
• This makes me wonder about…
• I think we could/ should… How about we ask…
• Maybe we could search for..

Sorting

• How is our thinking changing?
• What patterns are you seeing?
• What does this mean?
• How has our thinking been extended from what we already knew?
• What questions arise for you?
• What are you noticing?
• What questions have we answered? What next?
• What connections can we draw?
• How is this making a difference to us?
• How can we use what we are learning?
• I used to think… but now I think… I wasn’t expecting to find out about…
• I can connect this with…
• This tells me that..

Going Further

• What are you most interested in finding out about now?
• How could you take this further?
• How might you go about this investigation?
• What new questions do you have?
• Is there something you think you could do with this information?
• How can you achieve that?
• What personal learning goals can you set during this independent inquiry?
• What do you need?
• What do you need to do?
• I’m confused about…
• I still need to know/ do…

Reflection

• What can we say about this topic now that we couldn’t say in the beginning?
• What do you think is the most important thing we have learned about? Why?
• What should we share with others? How?
• Where to next?
• What questions are we left with? Why? What have we learned about ourselves and about learning?
• I used to think… but now I think…
• Next time I need to…
• I have learned more about…
• I can use this when…
• I have improved at..