Over the past several months, I have been embarking on my Building Block Inquiry (BBI) journey. When I first read about this approach to inquiry, I was excited; it truly seemed like the silver bullet, or maybe a Trojan horse, to encourage even the most skeptical peers and colleagues to adopt inquiry in their curriculum, at least a little. Surely, a couple of pages of curriculum is far less intimidating than the often twenty-page Standard Inquiry!
After more than a decade of reading about, planning, and implementing various forms of inquiry, I can honestly admit that I wasn’t quite sure how to include Building Block Inquiry. What was the right balance? Which courses would best fit this approach? I was deeply committed to the comprehensive (and fully IDM-based) curriculum I had developed for my World History class, so my only other option was my Economics & Personal Finance course.
Over the past several years, inquiry has helped me put the “personal” in personal finance, but I’ve felt that my teaching approach lacked engagement when it came to Behavioral Economics and current events. I’m passionate about these topics and have strong resources for sharing relevant data, but my execution always seemed to fizzle with students—or perhaps they simply weren’t as excited as I was.
After reflecting on the Deliberate–Collaborate–Produce approach of Building Block Inquiry, I realized it offered the structure I needed to round out my practice. This protocol, combined with structured discussions, has helped me incorporate rich, purposeful visual data (charts, graphs, histograms, etc.) in ways that allow students to analyze and draw conclusions about the financial world around them. Adding a bit of structure to the inherent trust of Building Block Inquiry helped me feel more confident in tracking students’ formative progress—both through the task itself and in their skill development.
It’s important not to confuse “trust” with a lack of clear objectives, especially when students are first test-driving BBI. What I most like to share is that Building Block Inquiry pairs well with other protocols and gives greater purpose to classroom discussion and collaboration. This combination helps establish a sense of familiarity for students and provides them with clearer objectives. I can confidently say that over half of my students at least feign interest in visual data—and assessment scores tracking related skills have improved significantly since implementing this approach.
After my first attempts at using Building Block Inquiry in my Economics & Personal Finance class, I was tasked with chairing a county-wide effort to build high school lessons related to America’s 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. What a great opportunity to introduce this type of inquiry to a larger audience! The grant associated with this project emphasized local connections, so I began scouring primary sources related to local history—especially rich images that lend themselves well to this type of inquiry.
My goal was to create a stack that showcased how national themes connect directly to local events and developments, while also selecting moments from across the past 250 years that addressed recurring themes over time. As a recent transplant to the area, this project offered a wonderful chance to connect to my surroundings while also finding a sense of shared history—since each local development parallels broader, concurrent national trends. In meeting with other teachers in my county and sharing this approach to inquiry, I’m hopeful that more educators will explore and implement either this approach or the lessons I’ve created.
Now that I’ve finished my first Building Block stack, I’ve returned to my original BBI stack on Economics & Personal Finance. If I complete all my ideas for this stack, it will include at least ten Building Block Inquiry IDMs for this subject area. I hope to be able to share them soon!
