Essential Questions and Answers for Implementing Inquiry

National news has been recently inundated with the pictures and sounds generated from the Philae probe as it precariously rests on the surface of a comet. NASA Mission Control must be a regular gaggle of questions from the scientists as they monitor the feed from the probe. This is truly fascinating stuff.

We know that with young children the entire universe is fascinating stuff! They want to know about everything. They are endlessly curious and they naturally inquire. Inquiry learning is the way they learn to speak, walk, play, and interact with others. It is the natural way to learn. And perhaps not surprisingly, the natural way to teach.

INQUIRY SUMMIT II

The second Inquiry Summit, sponsored by ABC-CLIO through its imprint Libraries Unlimited, was held at the ALA Annual Conference 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada. This Inquiry Summit II had a decidedly different flavor than the 2012 event with less of an emphasis in the theoretical and more on the practical aspects of implementing inquiry learning in schools. The working definition used for inquiry learning, however, remains the same:

Inquiry learning is enabled by the context of student learning and collaboration among school librarians, teachers, and others in the learning community. Learners are encouraged to question and inquire into what they want to know so that curiosity is promoted. Inquiry learning develops certain dispositions or habits of mind (e.g. wonderment, curiosity, and the higher-order thinking skills). Inquiry is student or learner driven and acknowledges the importance of the “third space” (Kuhlthau, et al. 2012, 30).

The “third space” is defined as where the student world and the curriculum meet.

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

Building on the framework of the previous summit, each participant was given access to all of the conversations from the 2012 event and the published materials. This summit brought together practitioners and theorists to discuss three essential questions. Those attending were Violet Harada, Rachel Wadham, Liz Deskins, Ladonna Harrington, Paige Jaeger, Olga Nesi, Mary Keling, Annette Lamb, Rebecca Morris, and Judi Moreillon. Joyce Valenza attended for part of the day.

Rotating between discussion venues, the group responded to three essential questions. Each participant was asked to write a personal reflection on the day and also responded to an hour-long personal interview later reflecting on the implementation of inquiry learning, its importance, and particularly focusing on questions relating to what is needed to train educators in this approach to learning and teaching. Following are the responses summarized.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION 1: How do we train educators to adopt an inquiry approach to learning in their schools?

1. Administrators and those in charge of staff development need to provide workshops and materials that empower teachers in collaboration with school librarians to understand and adopt an inquiry stance to teaching and learning. These workshops and materials need to share and model successful examples of assessing needs and embedding inquiry teaching across curriculum silos, specifically addressing how to integrate inquiry learning with content area instruction.

2. Online and face-to-face workshops should be offered to all educators (teachers of all content areas, school librarians, and administrators) together. This would model and facilitate collaboration and give deeper understanding of the inquiry approach to instruction. It would also provide for collaborative planning and development of units of instruction using inquiry learning as the basis.

3. Publishers and others need to develop online materials that feature visual models of best practice instruction in teaching inquiry skills. These modules should show how to collaborate and teach across the curricular silos using inquiry learning.

4. Print and online materials for training should show how to use the power of technology to develop “power partnerships” among teachers and school librarians to use what is currently valued (standards, technology, testing, STEAM) as springboard to the inquiry approach to learning.

QUESTION 2: What are the best strategies for implementing inquiry learning in schools?

1. Demonstrate the need for inquiry instruction by identifying common goals of all educators in the building (standards, testing, STEAM, mission, etc). Inquiry must become the meat and potatoes of the school curriculum, not the dessert!

2. Coach by providing examples of successful and not-so-successful inquiry lessons.

3. Enable teachers and school librarians to experience their own inquiry by facilitating opportunities to explore personal and professional interests through an inquiry process.

4. Work hard to win administrative support through education and advocacy efforts.

5. Provide for professional development opportunities to explore inquiry learning. Construct toolkits for staff with vocabulary defined and including short (20 minute read or less) articles.

6. Discuss and help to prevent barriers to inquiry by using a problem solving process such as “I know; I disagree, I still have questions, and I am willing to try this.”

7. Harness the support of the school and broader community through communications featuring research, national models, testimonies, etc.

8. Help teachers “nudge” their existing lessons toward inquiry by helping them scaffold and change their lessons and provide annotated lesson plan overlays of traditional plans showing how to move to an inquiry approach.

9. Provide time, practice opportunities, and rewards (food, recognition) for school librarians and teachers to collaborate on planning and co-teaching lessons using the inquiry approach. Honor success!

10. Advocate for additional education for pre-service teachers and school librarians on collaboration, co- teaching, and the inquiry approach to teaching and learning.

QUESTION 3: How are the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) changing the need and/or interest in implementing inquiry learning in schools?

1. The CCSS Standards (and other similar standards in states not adopting CCSS) push teachers and school librarians toward inquiry learning as the standards themselves advocate for real-world relevance in learning. Inquiry encourages students to ask questions about things that matter to them in their real world and encourages teachers and librarians to teach in that “third space” that joins curriculum to the student’s real world.

2. Considering the problem of adopting the CCSS opens the conversation between teachers and school librarians. It offers an opportunity to build relationships, embrace co-teaching and collaboration, adopt instructional change, and find new understanding together.

3. The CCSS gives librarians in schools the opportunity to teach. School librarians need to embrace the language of the classroom and step up to their role as co-teachers in the school.

4. The entire stance of the Common Core State Standards (and other similar state standards) is to encourage students to read for questions, not answers and that is “inquiry learning.”

THE ROLE OF THE SCHOOL LIBRARIAN

In concluding and reflecting on the day’s discussions, the common theme was that school librarians have an unprecedented opportunity created by the widespread adoption of the CCSS. Through CCSS and other similar standards, school librarians can become indispensible to the other educators in their schools as they become co-teachers, collaborators and staff developers advocating for inquiry learning. The participants’ final reflections and recommendations are very helpful to practicing school librarians as they endeavor to do this.

School librarians are the “bridge” for teachers, enabling them to understand inquiry learning and CCSS. They do this by:

1. Identifying and sharing relevant research with teachers, administrators, and the wider school community.

2. Providing relevant, practical, and usable staff development for teachers and all staff.

3. Co-teaching and modeling inquiry instruction and best practice.

4. Helping teachers connect inquiry units of instruction to CCSS and other standards and to the school curriculum.

5. Constantly advocating for and participating in collaboration, co-teaching, and building the “team” approach to teaching.

6. Developing tool kits for teachers that explain the vocabulary of inquiry learning and the CCSS. Librarians can also furnish model lesson plans in several different content areas and provide strategies for taking existing lesson plans and moving them toward a more inquiry based approach to instruction.

7. Patiently and kindly helping teachers to move forward and leave behind static, quick answer-driven projects that encourage plagiarism and have no interest to students.

8. Developing a common language for inquiry that embraces all inquiry models in order to facilitate understanding and find common ground.

9. Using the examples of team training for collaboration in instruction found at Project PEARL (www.hawaii.edu/lis/pearl).

The role of the school librarian in implementing inquiry learning within the framework of CCSS and other standards obviously cannot be understated. First, of course, the school librarian needs to have a deep understanding of inquiry learning. ABC- CLIO, through its professional imprint Libraries Unlimited and its journal School Library Monthly, continues its ongoing commitment to focus on inquiry in schools. A listing of new and forthcoming books on the topic is included in Additional Resources at the conclusion of this article.

Perhaps the best way for school librarians to become comfortable with implementing inquiry learning is to practice becoming inquirers themselves and to encourage faculty and staff to do likewise. The best and natural way to teach anything is to serve as a model. What is it that you want to know? What is it that fascinates you? About what are you curious?