Designing Inquiry using IDM

Welcome to Designing Inquiry: A professional learning experience designed specifically for WCPSS teachers

The Inquiry Design Model (IDM) is a distinctive approach to creating curriculum and instructional materials that honors teachers’ knowledge and expertise, avoids overprescription, and focuses on the main elements of the instructional design process as envisioned in the Inquiry Arc of the C3 Framework. Developed by Kathy Swan, SG Grant, and John Lee, IDM provides students with opportunities to engage important questions that are relevant to their experiences and complete learning tasks using authentic sources. Unique to the IDM is the blueprint, a one-page representation of the questions, tasks, and sources that define a curricular inquiry.

You can learn more about IDM and access hundreds of published inquiries at c3teachers.org .

In this module, you will learn more about IDM and design an inquiry that you can use with your students. The goal of this professional learning opportunity is to develop and extend your knowledge of how to plan for and implement inquiry-based learning using IDM, but perhaps more importantly to create materials you can use with your students right away. We are living through an unprecedented disruption in learning, so we've designed this learning experience with those immediate needs in mind.

You'll need about 10 hours to complete this PD. Your work will consist of five design challenges linked to the 10 steps in the inquiry design process. Your final product will be a full Inquiry Blueprint, including the sources you'll need to implement with your students. We've kept in mind your needs to design for remote learning. The final product will be something you can send to your students to be completed in their remote location.

So, if you are ready for this design journey, let's get started!

--John Lee and Meghan Manfra, NC State University