Inquiry for Deep Learning
Course
Authentic Inquiry [4:37]
Too often, students accomplish an assignment just to please the teacher or just to get the grade, but the task lacks authenticity or ownership. To develop an inquiring mind, authenticity can take us a long ways. Let's think of inquiry as a process in which we engage students in the process of producing, not reproducing knowledge.
Authentic tasks often require that students not only analyze, but they have to make judgments, or decisions, or proposals. In short, authentic tasks engage students in complex thinking that is characteristic of deep inquiry. We can transition to more authentic work by creating scenarios that situate inquiry into the kind of work real people do. Think about the library experiences associated with each of these authentic tasks. In science, we give each student team a set of symptoms and invite them to assume the role of a physician attempting to diagnose a patient's potential disease. To solve this challenge, the team of students will need to investigate potential diseases and make judgments about the likelihood of those potential diseases being manifest in their patients. Such a task goes well beyond the more traditional assignment to write a report about a disease of your choice.
Or, think about the English classroom. Assume that you are an attorney arguing on behalf of your client against the death penalty. This situates an assignment much more interestingly than the traditional task to write an argumentative essay. How about science? Let's assume that you are the superintendent of schools. Citizens are complaining that the schools are generating too much trash. Design a plan to reduce that trash by 50%. That seems much more engaging, much more authentic than "write a report on a topic related to the environment."
Or this science class. Assume that you are a member of a local conservation club. A developer is proposing rezoning an area for a new multifamily housing project, but you know that this is a valuable pathway for turtles, deer, and small mammals traveling to and from nearby water sources. Prepare your presentation to the council objecting to the developer's plan. Doesn't this surpass the complexity of an assignment to give a speech about conservation?
Or in social studies. Assume that you're running for school board. Compose a campaign speech to give at the League of Women Voters' meeting, far more engaging than give a five-minute persuasive speech. Scenarios like these add authenticity to inquiry assignments as student meet challenges representative of real world situations. These scenarios give them a sense of audience and purpose for their inquiry.
To bring their inquiry work into the realm of authenticity, an interesting line of questioning to pose for them is, what's going to be really important about your findings? Who might it be important for? Such questions as these set an expectation that students will be thinking about audience and will see that their work should result in more than just collected and assembled information.
While school is inherently a surrogate for real world learning, creating potentially authentic audiences can enhance the inquiry experience. When students begin an inquiry project, early questions should be, who is your audience, why does this question matter to that audience? Such a positioning of the inquiry process is likely to create a more authentic and frankly more interesting experience from the beginning. It will guide the refinement of their research question, the type of information relevant for their inquiry, and the format and style of their end product.
Authentic tasks "replicate challenges that are faced in the real world." Authentic tasks and resulting products of learning are integral to inquiry because of the engagement and investment they offer students. If you recall the introduction to this workshop, Donham suggested that excitement for learning is an intended outcome of inquiry. Without a "real" reason to pursue inquiry, students probably won't experience that excitement. This lesson offers several instances of authentic tasks applied across grade levels and subject areas.
Read the Donham article, "Assignments Worth Doing" (included in Resources below). This article summarizes key points from the lessons in this workshop and also introduces a new angle: substantive integration of technology.
Returning once more to your project idea from Lessons 4 and 5, use Figure 1. Guide to Deep Learning through Inquiry to answer two questions across the domains of Concept-Based, Application to Real-World, Substantive Technology Integration, and Active Intellectual Exploration. The questions are "how does this project measure up?" and "how can it be improved?"
MLA Citation
Morris, Rebecca J. "Inquiry for Deep Learning: How Does This Project Measure Up?" School Library Connection, November 2024, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2001850?learningModuleId=2001843&topicCenterId=2247903.
Entry ID: 2122833
Additional Resources
About the Author
Jean Donham, PhD, has taught in the area of school librarianship at both the University of Iowa School of Library & Information Science and at the University of Northern Iowa in the School Library Studies program. Earlier, she worked in the Iowa City Community School District where she coordinated the school library program for thirteen years. She also served for eight years as library director at Cornell College, a selective liberal arts college. Dr. Donham holds an master's in library science from the University of Maryland and a doctorate in educational leadership from the University of Iowa. She has authored numerous articles, book chapters, and books, including her most recent book, Enhancing Teaching and Learning: A Leadership Guide for School Librarians.
MLA Citation
Donham, Jean. "Inquiry for Deep Learning. Authentic Inquiry [4:37]." School Library Connection, ABC-CLIO, February 2016, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2001850?learningModuleId=2001843&topicCenterId=2247903.
https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2001850?learningModuleId=2001843&topicCenterId=2247903
Entry ID: 2001850