Student engagement is the cornerstone of effective teaching, particularly in inquiry-based classrooms where curiosity and critical thinking take center stage. The principles of inquiry tell us that the more students are invested in exploring big ideas through meaningful conversations, the more authentic their learning experiences become. Successful inquiry thrives on this engagement. Inquiry-minded teachers, in particular, recognize that fostering this level of engagement by relying solely on traditional methods like textbooks and lectures can be akin to trying to ignite a fire with damp wood–it’s a struggle to get a spark. To truly ignite inquiry in the classroom, students need relevant questions, meaningful tasks, and content-rich sources. These elements become the kindling for engagement.
But even with the more well-crafted questions, tasks, and sources, a sustainable inquiry fire needs fuel. It needs students to talk–really talk. To authentically engage, students need to trust in the process and understand why their dialogue matters.
Teachers can help students build this inquiry mindset by providing a foundation for collaborative learning. Our favorite go-to methods for collaboration (think-pair-share, turn and talk, elbow buddies conversation) only bear fruitful dialogue when our students are prepared to talk, have the tools to talk, and trust the end goal.
Get students collaboration-ready
Building this trust begins with preparing students to have something to share and be willing to share it. It starts with students’ individual ideas and opinions. Classrooms can be intimidating spaces for students, leaving them reluctant to share their ideas or open up about their opinions. Creating opportunities for low threshold tasks (such as simple opinion statements) can encourage participation without the fear of failure. In inquiry, the goal is not to arrive at a single predetermined “right” answer but to engage in the thoughtful process of argumentation where diverse perspectives are valued and necessary. Spending class time on the building blocks of an argument creates confidence in students’ ability to contribute meaningfully to a discussion.
Let collaboration build trust between peers
Collaboration thrives when participants trust each other enough to share their opinions and work together. This can be a heavy lift. Inquiry tasks that provide opportunities for students to work in safe spaces for deliberation can encourage more meaningful and authentic discussion. For example, asking students to rate their opinion on a complex or sensitive topic using a Likert Scale (e.g., strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree) and then grouping them by how they answered could produce a safer space for initial conversations than simply grouping students randomly. Once they have had a chance to clarify their opinions in this homogeneous group, they can be grouped heterogeneously to share their ideas again.
Make the classroom a collaborative-rich environment
Finally, to sustain a collaborative-rich learning environment, our students should engage with sources that resonate with their lives, interests, and modes of thinking. Instead of asking students to read entire articles and provide summaries, give them opportunities to categorize or rank newspaper article headlines, which can spark deeper discussion and collaboration. Tasks that require deliberative work or multiple perspectives encourage more meaningful engagement and originality. Students also benefit from opportunities to share opinions on topics that are timely, relevant, and culminate in a shared goal. When students see that their contributions and opinions matter, their trust in the process–and in each other–grows.
As collaboration grows, students’ willingness to inquiry grows. That’s the beauty of students working together. When creating an inquiry culture around collaboration, classrooms become powerful and hopeful places where students come to their own answers and not simply the “right” answer.
