Identify

After selecting the type of inquiry, you go through basically the same steps as your students to create an inquiry unit. Mackenzie suggests starting with a structured inquiry unit based on a topic or unit you have taught before that has been reframed with a powerful essential question. "Start with what you know, start small, and start with the end in mind" (MacKenzie , p. 39).

Step 1.

Four Pillars:

Determine whether students will explore a passion, aim for a goal, delve into curiosities, take on a new challenge, or themselves select one pillar as the focus of their inquiry-based learning. This explains in more detail.

Step 2.

Essential Questions:

Organize inquiry-based learning around questions that "point toward important, transferable ideas; raise additional questions and spark further inquiry; and require support and justification, not just an answer" (McTighe & Wiggins, p. 1).

Check out "Chapter 1. What Makes a Question Essential?" from Essential Questions by McTighe and Wiggins for a refresher on essential questions, including the 6-question quiz on identifying essential questions.

Step 3.

Proposal & Plan:

Create a proposal form for students to guide their inquiry, based on your decisions in steps 1 and 2 and Understanding by Design principles.

How much independence will you give students? Will you or they select authentic products or events to showcase their learning? What will be acceptable evidence of their learning? Your decisions will affect the scaffolding you need to provide at all stages of the inquiry.

Note: If you are doing guided or free inquiry, look at this Expert Hour slide show, which has materials that can be adapted to help students identify passions, goals, curiosities, challenges; develop essential questions and authentic projects; create and pitch a proposal; create; reflect; and revise.

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