Deeper Learning through Inquiry

Jean Donham talks about how to create deep inquiry learning experiences for students.

The habits of asking questions, seeking information, wondering, questioning, challenging are essential for inquiry.

Dispositions must be modeled and practiced in order to become habits of mind. One way to model is to consistently use "scripts"—consistent language that represents thinking aloud behaviors.

Inquiry begins with curiosity. In this lesson, we will think about ways that libraries can stimulate curiosity, both through passive and active interventions.

When our students think about doing research or doing an inquiry project, what do they think they're going to do?How can we help change their faulty mental model to be more like what we were hoping they thought they were going to be doing?

The Stripling Model of Inquiry

Carol Kuhlthau's guided inquiry model.

Thinking about inquiry as a conceptual investigation can help frame inquiry so it encourages students to arrive at insights or discoveries to stretch them beyond gathering facts.

Authentic inquiry requires risk-taking; it requires entering into the quest for answers to unanswered questions—exploring unknowns.

Use this template as a planning guide when working with teachers to create deep learning experiences for students.

We want to teach our students to ask conceptual, maybe even provocative questions.

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.

Jean Donham analyzes how educators spend their time, and how they can be even more effective with the small amount of time that they have with students.

Jean Donham talks about how to create deep inquiry learning experiences for students.