ABSTRACT

“Charting Student Growth” by Benjamin Denomme detailed the effectiveness of inquiry-based learning for students in the 9th grade participating in the Big History Project. The study started with a pre-assessment of a section on Expansion and Interconnection of Ancient Humans. This lesson focused on the question, “Why did civilization expand?” Students drew from previous units and came up with questions of their own concerning expansion throughout human history. The driving question was posed at the beginning of the lesson, which aided the students in maintaining focus on key ideas and content throughout the unit. Students received a variety of materials; they watched videos, read an article, and defined vocabulary terms that allowed for differentiation of instruction and learning, which suited all levels and abilities of the students within the classroom. The section ended with a post-test that was comparable to the pre-test. The results came back and indicated that inquiry-based learning is an effective method of teaching 9th-grade students.