“I made it easier and easier and they still didn’t learn,” laments a frustrated school librarian. Micromanaging groups of fourth graders through a packet on the Revolutionary War, a librarian opts for a scoop-and-spit process. Scooping up factual information and spitting it out as a response to a concrete prompt almost guarantees zero recall after a short period of time. After weeks of tasking, retrieving, and restating facts, it is not uncommon for learners to struggle to explain their research in their own words. Students have gone through the motions, but nothing sticks. The claim that the work is easy and that learning does not happen is not disputed.

So how does this reality check find its way to inquiry? Neuroscience now validates an inspiring body of educational research that asserts the need to move past rote to authentic and rigorous learning; students learn best when their work is challenging, rigorous, and authentic. A 2003 Canadian study concluded that “students who struggle with literacy need to engage in activities that involve higher-level thinking, reasoning, and communication,” and that implementing intellectually demanding learning with connections to the student’s world results in deep knowledge and understanding (Think Literacy Success 2003).

As standards reform incorporates the strategies of brain-based learning, an array of tools to increase rigor have entered the educational arena. Challenge and rigor win the Buzzwords of the Year Contest, but professional literature acknowledges that these important attributes have been wrongly equated with harder books, more work, rigid scheduling, and tougher tests. In essence, though, rigor is all about complexity of thinking and cognitive processes that produce deep understanding. Inquiry fills the bill.

The paradigm shift to inquiry is brain-based and rigorous. Student-centered process, questioning, authentic and meaningful investigations, original conclusions, and shared knowledge products are like Velcro to a brain. Our brains thrive on challenge. New knowledge sticks. The cognitive processes and pedagogical practices that define inquiry are exactly what work to produce deep understanding and formative knowledge. “I made it more and more rigorous and they really learned!” might be the construct that works in an inquiry environment. Neuroscience affirms that active inquirers, engaged and questioning, consider their investigations important and meaningful. The brain holds onto what the learners own and care about. The brain hardwires what is synthesized, builds on it, and uses it to continue to learn.

Inquiry starts with the real world of the learner and authentic process. It then leads to active interrogation of text and ultimately to synthesis. Meaningful and long term knowledge happens when learners synthesize information from multiple sources, solve real world problems, analyze evidence or complex themes, and gather, analyze, and organize information. Open-ended problems, intelligent solutions, creative design, and critical engagement are the beating heart of inquiry.

A shopping trip for tools to guide the inquiry paradigm shift to rigor is challenging in its own right. The options below have been widely employed to guide educators to frame learning experiences that are rigorous. Note in exploring them: they have common ground in higher level thinking, synthesis of multiple information resources, problem solving, and authentic process and products. Educators should reflect on daily practice in the light of cognitive levels and draw conclusions. Note also the obvious connections to inquiry.

Norman Webb’s Depth of Knowledge Levels (http://www.ode.state.or.us/teachlearn/subjects/socialscience/standards/depthofknowledgechart.pdf) speaks the language of information literacy and higher level thinking.  These levels can occur simultaneously, but lead to expanded thinking.

Emphasis on Bloom’s Cognitive Process Dimensions (https://education.ohio.gov/getattachment/Topics/Teaching/Educator-Evaluation-System/How-to-Design-and-Select-Quality-Assessments/DOK-Compared-to-Blooms-Taxonomy.pdf.aspx) and Karin Hess’s Cognitive Rigor Matrix (http://www.nciea.org/publications/rigorpresentation_KH11.pdf) are challenging every school librarian to find their way to the energy behind brain- based learning and the new, rigorous standards in science and social studies:     

Based on Barbara Stripling and Judy Pitts’ REACTS Taxonomy and Bloom’s Taxonomy, Paige Jaeger and I lay out the steps that lead to the goal of higher level thinking, questions, and products. See Use This Page.

Works Cited:

Think Literacy Success, Grades 7-12: The Report of the Expert Panel on Students at Risk in Ontario. Ontario Ministry of Education, 2003. http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/document/reports/literacyreport.pdf