Inquiry is used as a vehicle to get students engaged and excited about learning. We all found that students are highly engaged with inquiry-based learning. One teacher stated, "It was exciting to watch the children's excitement when they were in control of their learning." Students were enthusiastic to speak in French about their learning and listen to the ideas of others. Relunctant readers and writers were now eager to read articles and complete writing pieces related to their inquiry projects. When students are engaged and enthusiastic about their learning they are more likely to reach their learning goals.
We decided that if we wanted to foster a culture of inquiry we needed to start by teachering children how to express their questions in French using Qui? Quoi? Comment? Pourquoi? Comment? This was evident across all of the grade levels. We searched for answers to those questions by exploring a variety of inquiry approaches with our students from structured inquiries (where students follow the lead of the teacher and engage in one inquiry together) to free inquiries (where students choose their own topics and decide how they will display their learning). We explored how these inquiry approaches could be related to action oriented-tasks.
We learned that all inquiry-based learning needs to start with the curriculum expectations. The curriculum needs to be hacked first so that we can see where it fits into our inquiry-based learning. It is essential to make explicit links to the curriculum as well as learning skills, Catholic Graduate Expectations and 21st Century Learning Competencies. Inquiry-based learning is successful when there is a clear learning goal in place and students are a part of developing the success criteria so they can also self-assess their progress. Inquiry on its own does not help move students in listening, speaking, reading or writing levels. It needs to be coupled with high yield instructional strategies (e.g. guided reading, guided writing).