Venturing into Inquiry

For those wanting to venture into inquiring while maintaining the framework of current instruction, here are some great ideas!

Taxonomy of inquiry strategies

So jumping straight into pure inquiry scares you? Just a little more freedom than you really want to give your students? Not all inquiry is created equal, and this article describes a taxono... See More

So jumping straight into pure inquiry scares you? Just a little more freedom than you really want to give your students? Not all inquiry is created equal, and this article describes a taxonomy based on 300 activities. Eight different categories are described, including protocols, design challenge, product testing, black boxes, intrinsic data space, taxonomy, discrepant events, and modeling. A single activity with simple modifications might fit more than one category of the taxonomy. For instance, we might make the traditional egg drop a design challenge, but we could also investigate it as a modeling exercise (how does dropping the egg relate to dropping a landrover on Mars) or even a protocol activity. If you are being challenged as you try to build inquiry into your curriculum, this article is a great starting point for understanding the many flavors of inquiry. Lesson plans are not provided, but excellent descriptions of each class is provided, along with an extensive bibliography.