Inquiry-Based Teaching

Broadly speaking, inquiry-based teaching strategies use questions or problems to drive learning. Students seek knowledge and understanding while the instructor acts as a facilitator. Ideally, students become more self-directed and reflective as they take more responsibility for their education. 

Aspects of inquiry can be incorporated into courses at varying levels, from an individual class or assignment to underlying an entire semester. Many practices are the same or closely related to group assignments, research, discussions, and critical thinking methods.

Potential benefits for students include:

• Increasing critical thinking and problem-solving skills 
• Taking responsibility for one’s learning and fostering a desire for lifelong learning
• Making connections between coursework and research practices
• Gaining familiarity with professional research practices 
• Experiencing the processes of knowledge creation

Challenges for instructors and students include:

• Preparation time for instructors to design and monitor assignments 
• A single assignment can require students to develop skills in multiple areas, such as disciplinary concepts, processes, reflection, and group dynamics.
• Developing grading criteria that value both processes and products
• Potential for student unfamiliarity and resistance to the methods

Conceptual Model: Levels of Inquiry

One basic conceptual inquiry learning model assumes a generalized process for addressing questions. Levels of inquiry vary according to the type and amount of student independence and instructor guidance as students analyze and address questions or solve problems.

Structured Inquiry: Novice students who are new to your discipline's concepts and working processes may benefit from higher levels of structure and guidance. An example of a highly structured assignment is one in which the instructor poses a question for the students to address, along with the processes and resources to address the question. The question likely has a correct answer known to the instructor but not the students. The students’ work is primarily in applying the processes of addressing the question and communicating the results. 

Guided Inquiry: More experienced students can gain more independence in the process. One example would be to work with a more open-ended question, for which the assignment is about their process and reasoning to address the question and propose a response.

Discovery (or Open)Inquiry: Advanced students can increase their level of independence by taking on more steps of the inquiry process, such as developing questions, the means to address the question, and communicating results.

Factors for consideration

When considering instructor guidance and student independence, please remember students’ experience with ancillary practices such as tool use, team collaboration, working with limited supervision, or monitoring their processes. Students may be at a different level with these skills than with content knowledge; the progression of student learning and levels of inquiry is not necessarily linear. Novice students can work at practices of question formulation and open-ended processes similar to that described for advanced students. Still, they will likely need greater and more specific support and guidance to do so. 

Some examples of inquiry learning

Problem-based learning is a method in which the introduction of open-ended problems provides context and motivation for acquiring the necessary knowledge and skills to address the issue. For example, when students are presented with an open-ended, real-world problem, they first analyze the situation and generate ideas such as causes, impacts, related issues, general hypotheses, or paths to solutions. Subsequent steps and iterations involve identifying questions, gathering information or data, developing working processes, and proposing and evaluating solutions. Project-based learning is similar to creating a final product, which may involve solving multiple problems as part of development.

Case studies present situations with one or more problems to solve. Students analyze relevant background information, make decisions, and propose solutions and recommendations.

Some ideal qualities of a case study include:

• Presents realistic situations involving characters and the environment
• Requires a course of action, such as a proposed solution to a problem
• Includes relevant background information
• Benefits from considering multiple perspectives, from case characters and class members as they consider the case
• Offers potential for multiple solutions
• Requires students to analyze and synthesize information
• Poses scenarios complex enough to be exciting and challenging but limited sufficiently so students don’t get lost in details

Lab or fieldwork can provide an environment where students learn content and application skills. Sometimes, with cookbook lists of procedures, students focus more on following steps than on critically thinking about why they are using the process steps. Labs can be designed to have more open-ended outcomes and focus students on processes. These may include starting with an observation and working to uncover an explanation and general principle or starting with an explanation and developing methods to test and confirm the principle and its application. In some cases, students can build inquiry skills for original research by designing their experimental processes as they seek an unknown outcome. 

Selected strategies to consider with inquiry assignments

Develop activities with guidance appropriate to student skill level. Novice to intermediate students learning basic concepts and methods may be limited in their ability to solve or seek guidance on inquiry problems. The term ‘scaffolding’ refers to providing and slowly removing cognitive support to students. Examples include:

• Breaking down a complex problem into steps that can be worked on in isolation
• Providing question prompts to help students plan and monitor their approaches
• Practice problems or process milestones with feedback on student performance and guidance on improvement.

Use activities that promote student reflection. Examples include: 

• Start the assignment by connecting it to relevant topics learned previously and its context within course goals,
• Describe the expected major takeaways for students, such as knowledge or skills
• Ask questions that require students to think about their working processes in addition to their results

Have students work and discuss in groups. Benefits include peer support and skill development in expressing and evaluating ideas. Effective practices include choosing a problem demanding enough that multiple group members need to solve and requiring group members to think and process ideas together.

Include training and expectation management for related skills, such as presentation media, group dynamics, or technology use. Including training and communication of expectations on these skills benefit your students by reducing the likelihood that they get stuck or pursue unnecessary efforts in these areas.

Citations:

• Ako Aotearoa National Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence, Inquiry-Based Learning. Retrieved March 24, 2016 from https://akoaotearoa.ac.nz/projects/inquiry-based-learning 
• Davis, Barbara Gross. Tools for Teaching. John Wiley & Sons, 2009.
• Hodges, Linda C. Teaching Undergraduate Science: A Guide to Overcoming Obstacles to Student Learning. Stylus Publishing, LLC, 2015.