Inquiry Learning

Our inquiry curriculum is a co-constructed curriculum guided by the requirements of the NZC and contextual learning directly relating to children’s interests and their interaction with the world around them.  We are guided by the overarching statements and achievement objectives of the NZC and these are stated in planning. We track our teaching in order to ensure coverage of the curriculum aiming at covering curriculum strand learning over a four yearly cycle.  This means sometimes we can choose specific learning as a direct response to children’s interest but usually we need to stimulate and guide the interest in order to expose children to new ideas and experiences and achieve a broad understanding across the curriculum strands.

St Joseph’s uses the inquiry approach to integrated learning.  We strive to teach literacy and numeracy in authentic contexts within an inquiry curriculum.


The following information aims to provide a background understanding to inquiry learning but we aim to keep our processes simple and consistent throughout the school in order to give the children ownership.  Our journey with inquiry learning has taken place over the past 8 years and has had several formats. The present format is:


Teacher’s Role

SOLO Level

Type of Activity




Find out children’s interests.

Plan to link children’s interests/concerns with curriculum learning.


Teach children how to:




Tie in literacy and numeracy learning opportunities in authentic contexts.


Specifically teach the thinking skills needed to move from one SOLO stage to the next - provide shared opportunities, maps and scaffolds.


Provide opportunities for action and experience

Prestructural through to Multistructural

Experiences 


Identify prior knowledge


Access new information - the more experiential the better

All thinking at this stage can be extended - e.g. see SOLO Map for “describe” which has extended abstract potential

Multistructural through to Relational

Making connections


Reviewing prior knowledge.


Making new knowledge/understandings

All thinking at this stage can be extended - e.g. see SOLO Map for “categorise” which has extended abstract potential

Relational through to Extended Abstract

So what?


Using new knowledge/understandings for social action


Making new questions for further inquiry.


Making life changes based on new understanding.


Transferring new learning into a different context


Questioning


Children should be taught how to question effectively so that they learn how to ask extended abstract questions and develop their ability to make meaningful self-driven inquiries.



Background to inquiry learning


The inquiry approach reflects the belief that active involvement on the part of students in constructing their knowledge is essential to effective teaching and learning - Classroom Connections - Kath Murdoch 2008

The emphasis in the inquiry approach moves from the view that knowledge is something that is "taught" to knowledge as learned.  The inquiry approach encourages students, through active investigation, to unify, rather than separate knowledge as they move from the acquisition of facts to the development of broader concepts and generalisations.  The inquiry process is centred on process as well as content.


Inquiry learning involves students forming their own questions about a topic and having time to explore the answers

Students are both problem posers and problem solvers within inquiry learning.  It is a collaborative process in which both teachers and learners work together negotiating aspects of the curriculum.

It is based on the belief that students are powerful learners who must be actively engaged in the process of investigating, processing, organising, synthesising, refining and extending their knowledge within a topic.


When planning an integrated inquiry unit the teacher:


Exposes the children to a wide range of high interest, active learning experiences which will stimulate curiosity across the curriculum.  Then the teacher collaborates with students to select significant topic(s) to drive inquiries which are significant to the children.


MULTISTRUCTURAL THINKING

Before students can develop these deeper understandings they need to identify facts about the specific events, objects, people and phenomena, "Facts are the lowest level of truth about a subject." (Pg1, Focus on inquiry).  




RELATIONAL THINKING

From facts, children can adopt a higher level of thinking and organisation, and form concepts.  When students build concepts they identify, organise and categorise groups of objects or events to make sense of the way the world works.  This can take a long time for children to gain and concepts can vary in difficulty and scope.

The level of difficulty depends on:


Explicitly using SOLO maps can help children at this stage.


To promote concept development it could be helpful to:


Use the SOLO model and adaptations of SOLO thinking maps to help the children investigate and deepen concepts at each stage of the inquiry.


Strong units that require higher-level thinking often have a number of key and contributing concepts.


Use an inquiry framework to select and sequence learning experiences across key learning areas.


Employ a range of strategies to help learners make connections and develop understandings, skills and values.


There are many different types of skills used during an inquiry unit:

identifying information requirements

locate organise and use information

curriculum area specific skills related to topic being studied

ICT skills

primary source information skills

processing skills

observing

predicting

constructing

problem solving.


Skills are best taught in a meaningful context, for a specific purpose and for the needs of the learner.

If one of the goals of integrated curriculum is to assist students to develop a "big picture" understanding of  their world - then we must teach in a way that promotes understanding.