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Unpacking the different phases in a cycle of inquiry and what makes these components effective.

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Planning: Take your expected standards/ curriculum & make them IBL! 

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Planning: Take your expected standards/ curriculum & make them IBL! 

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You can do it-

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Research conducted by the likes of David Hopkins and John Hattie, highlight that questioning plays a large part in our classrooms, being the 2nd most utilised teaching strategy behind teacher talk. However, most of the questions that we ask our students are lower-order or lower-cognitive questions that ask students to recall facts or are procedural. This is indicative of a focus on knowledge acquisition.

Utilising higher-order questioning enables students to convert information to knowledge, and move from Knowledge acquisition to knowledge application.
It is important to emphasise, as brain studies show, that motivation to learn is not sustained simply by asking questions. It is sustained by identifying, explaining, and using the new knowledge and understanding that results from asking and responding to questions.

Bloom's Taxonomy of Critical Thinking Skills is widely used as the basis for constructing questions - particularly higher order questions. Bloom classifies thinking into 6 categories:

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Exploring the importance of questioning in the inquiry classroom and examining ways we can promote questioning in our classrooms

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Great tools easily implement

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Article: Effective Teaching Through Kath Murdoch's Inquiry Cycle

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Article: Effective Teaching Through Kath Murdoch's Inquiry Cycle

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An implementation of the cycle giving in an ELA block focusing on vowel and constant work

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Kath's TED Talk from 2014

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The power of ummmm... | Kath Murdoch | TEDxWestVancouverED

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Article and video examples

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‘Inquiry is the dynamic process of being open to wonder and puzzlements and coming to know and understand the world ’ (Alberta Learning, 2004). ’Simply put, inquiry is the personal path of…

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When educators first begin on the inquiry learning journey, it can feel overwhelming when you begin the process of planning a unit of inquiry. Here are a series of questioning prompts and programming examples that will support you as you engage with each phase of the inquiry planning process.

Framing the inquiry:

Framing the inquiry is an essential part of knowing the content and how to teach it (Australian Professional Standards for Teachers - standard 2). These question prompts will help you to map out the big ideas of the inquiry unit and help you to examine the key concepts present in this unit, e.g. sustainability.

​Syllabus and Cross-Curriculum Links:

What outcomes do I need to address?

What are the cross-curriculum priorities & general capabilities addressed in this unit?

What opportunities are there for harnessing other KLAs to build a broader picture of learning?

Knowledge, Understanding and Skills:

What key content do I want my students to know and understand?

What skills do I want them to be able to demonstrate?

​What are the key concepts embedded throughout this inquiry?

How will I know they have achieved the outcomes?

How will I use assessment for, as and of throughout the learning process?

What products of learning will be used to assess knowledge, understanding, skills and thinking?

What feedback will be given during the different phases of the inquiry?

How can I promote self-regulation through feedback?

Brainstorming Experiences:

Once educators have a good understanding of the curriculum requirements, cross-curriculum connections that can be made and have a strong understanding of the key concepts to be explored in the unit, educators can begin brainstorming and sorting ideas for learning experiences and assessments that will help them achieve the learning goals and answer the key inquiry question(s). This process supports educators as they plan for and implement effective teaching and learning (Australian Professional Standards for Teachers - standard 3), and includes brainstorming about:

What are the big ideas and key themes?
Learning Experiences:

What kind of experiences might help students understand this content, concepts and answer the essential questions?

What opportunities might there be for authentic action?

​How will I get them to show their thinking, understanding, knowledge and skills?

Tuning In to the inquiry is a key part of knowing the students and how they learn as well as planning for and implementing effective teaching and learning(Australian Professional Standards for Teachers - standard 1 & 3). This phase is a crucial part of understanding where students are in the learning journey, where they need to head, what they wonder and deciding how we will get to that understanding.

How will I gather and record student wonderings?

​How will I link this provocation to the key inquiry question?

At what other stages of our inquiry might I need to tune students in to the learning experiences? ​

Shared Inquiry & Reflection:

Shared Inquiry and Reflection is a crucial component of planning for and implementing effective teaching and learning, as well as assessing, providing feddback and reporting on student learning (Australian Professional Standards for Teachers - standard 3 & 5). This phase is crucial to helping students build the necessary skills to find and sort out information, making connections and diving deeper into the core concepts of the inquiry.

What learning experiences will help my students FIND OUT and SORT OUT?

How can I integrate other Key Learning Areas to support students to understand the content and answer the key inquiry question? -rich opportunities for Literacy and Numeracy

How will I utilise student questions to shape the way our inquiry goes?

How will we reflect on learning as we go? - Assessment As Learning & Goal Setting

What learning experiences will I use to monitor student thinking and understanding?

How can I be deliberate about the types of questions I am asking?

How will we document our learning? What will we do with this as our learning progresses?

How will I provide effective feedback for students throughout the process?

Going Further:

Going Further is a crucial component of planning for and implementing effective teaching and learning (Australian Professional Standards for Teachers - standard 3). This phase is about providing structured and meaningful opportunities for students to dig a bit deeper with key concepts and explore wonderings further.

What opportunities are there for students to take learning further?

What opportunities are there for students to engage with and find solutions for authentic real-world problems?

How will these enhance student learning and understanding?

Programming Samples:

Below you will find a link to an example inquiry template that you can use or adapt to suit the needs of your own educational context. This planning template is useful for compliance and collaborative planning purposes and is an ongoing and evolving document as the inquiry unit progresses.

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Unpacking the process of planning an effective inquiury unit of work

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Unleashing students' curiosities leads to discoveries, they'll remember it! 

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Unleashing students' curiosities leads to discoveries, they'll remember it! 

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Mr. Dewey's constructive Theory explains that when students construct their own learning and thinking, they remember it!

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Kid friend graphic and explanations of the process

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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When using thinking routines as strategic vehicles in which to scaffold the thinking of our learners, we need to consider as teachers where we (both teacher and learner) are at in the phases of development continuum. Is this the first time you have used this routine? Or have you been using it regularly for a while now? Or is it so ingrained your learners use it without realising it?
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The answers to these questions will depend on the routine you are using and how often it is used within your educational context. It is therefore conceivable that a learner could be at varying phases at the same time for different routines. Examine the stages of development below:

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What are thinking routines and why should I incorporate them into my classroom?

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Short units of work that help to scaffold student thinking around particular concepts, topics and/or texts across the different curriculum areas.