Explore how taking bold steps toward inquiry-based learning can ignite curiosity and deepen student engagement. This blog post delves into the power of inquiry to transform traditional classrooms into dynamic spaces of discovery, fostering critical thinking and lifelong learning skills.
NOTE: This is a reposting of a post from Kathy that first appeared on Imagine Learning. here
In the iconic movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indy is in search of the Holy Grail and must complete three tasks in order to save his father and secure the ever-elusive cup. My favorite scene is when he must take a leap of faith across a deep, dark canyon to reach a doorway on the other side of the chasm. Passage seems dangerously impossible.
He consults his guidebook for directions, and he reads, “Only in the leap from the lion’s head will he prove his worth.” Indy then takes a breath, raises his left foot, and takes a brave step into the unknown. Instantly, a camouflaged bridge appears, and he is able to cross the void and retrieve the Holy Grail.
Teaching with inquiry can feel like this scene — especially in the back-to-school months of August and September. Social studies teachers look out into the eyes of a new group of students petrified that the inquiry bridge might not appear.
After all, inquiry is filled with unknowns. Teachers may have a solid inquiry curriculum stocked with compelling questions, sources, and tasks, but that is no guarantee that students will care about or engage with the material. And even if they do, there can be a palpable fear of losing control — what might students say in response to a question? Could the interpretation of a source land the teacher in an uncomfortable place? What if students get heated or offended by another student’s argument?
And then, if teachers are able to pass the first two “tests” of inquiry-based curriculum and instruction, there is always the leap of faith required to help students take informed action and participate civically. Inquiry teaching is fraught with instructional challenges, and fear can often get the better of us.
On the other hand, committed inquiry teachers loudly proclaim, “Inquiry is totally worth it!” They liken inquiry-based teaching to a holy grail of social studies where they reap exponential rewards. In writing this blog post, I polled some of my closest teaching colleagues and asked them to summarize the benefits of inquiry instruction, which I have coded and summarized below.
Teaching with inquiry provides more:
- Curricular coherence: Inquiry truly binds content, historical thinking and practices, and critical thinking/writing into one pedagogy.
- Student agency: Students have autonomy in learning (not in a silly choice board sort of way but in a “my teacher trusts my judgment and conclusions” sort of way).
- Deeper learning: We talk about critical thinking a lot, but inquiry is that process, and it pays off for students outside of the social studies classroom.
- Interdependence: Even more so than other methods of teaching, since inquiry is a “process,” it forces students to collaborate in meaningful ways — not “what is the correct answer?” but in a “well, what about this idea?” sort of way.
- The power of questioning: How questions are phrased expands how content can be approached. Inquiry also welcomes the idea that questions can be changed and challenged. Even asking a particular question can help students consider perspectives they hadn’t before.
- Opportunities to consider multiple perspectives: Invite meaningful classroom discussion where students can share and investigate multiple perspectives.
- Deliberation: Students have more opportunity to deliberate when considering the various perspectives, costs, benefits, problems, and solutions faced by humans past and present.
- Complexity: Inquiry gives students experience with the realistic messiness and complexity of human interaction.
- Curiosity: Learning through inquiry stokes a culture of curiosity, giving students agency to think, wonder, and question.
- Application/transference: Being expected to craft evidence-based claims regularly may transfer to students expecting the same of friends, family, and media.
- Community building: Engaging in inquiry builds trust and reciprocity between students, their peers, and the teacher.
This is inspiring for sure, but may not be enough to overcome fears even if it promises to transform us or our students. For example, I know the transformative benefits of daily exercise, yet I often opt for a comfy binge watch of my favorite tv show instead!
What, then, can move a teacher to take that leap of faith toward inquiry? I would argue that we take a page from Indiana Jones by consulting a guidebook and afterward taking a first (often scary) step forward.
One of the best sets of directions comes from John Dewey. In 1916 (that’s right — over 100 years ago!), Dewey provided this direction on teaching and learning:
“Only by wrestling with the conditions of the problem first hand, seeking and finding [his or her] own way out, does [he or she] think.”
That is, if we want students to know stuff, they need to do stuff. They need to wrestle with thorny human questions, and they need enough time, space, and support to make their own headway toward an answer.
In the meantime, teachers need to step back and help students in this messy and unsteady process — not too much help, not too little help, but just the right amount. That’s the part that can feel like leaping from a lion’s head! Watching students intellectually struggle is really hard, and knowing when and how to help them is even harder.
If inquiry feels like an impossible leap of faith, I recommend starting with a small step that revs your students’ curiosity engines.
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