Inquiry

Traditional Inquiry

Concentrates teaching on finding, locating and evaluating information for teacher’s assignments.

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Cutting Edge

Codesigns engaging learning experiences with the students and teachers that combine content and learning “how to learn” skills that extend inquiry into design thinking. Learners experience both individual and collaborative experiences.

Tips About Inquiry in the Library Learning Commons

Traditionally, the teacher librarian may have had a specific curriculum that was to be taught at various grade levels across the school year. This type of curriculum often centered around the promotion of reading, library skills, and research. The curriculum was often taught during scheduled library time in the elementary grades or as units of study connected to the language arts curriculum of the middle or high school.

Today, a more cutting edge approach is to have a much broader "curriculum of possibilities" that can be embedded into various learning experiences across the school. This "just in time" approach has a much higher probability of making a difference not only for the teacher librarian's concerns, but also boosting the goals and objectives created by the classroom teacher. Embedded experiences are tracked through a simple spreadsheet by teacher and grade level in order to assess not only coverage of the teacher librarian’s initiative, but also as a record of interventions.

Models of information literacy, later known as inquiry, began in 1978 in the U.S. when Barbara Stripling and Judy Pitts authored Brainstorms and Blueprints. Their model was followed shortly after by The Big Six created by Eisenberg and Berkowitz. Since then, a wide variety of models have been published. While varying flavors, most contain the following elements:

  • The creation of an engaging question
  • The search for high quality information
  • The consumption of that information
  • The summarization of what is known into some kind of product
  • The sharing of the product
  • A reflection of both content and process

The professional staff of the LLC and classroom teachers have the best chance of success with inquiry if they do comparisons of the various models and then adopt a flavor of their own. Even better, those who mentor the students themselves in coming up with their own model of inquiry do these young learners a great favor.

An attempt to teach inquiry in short bursts to scheduled elementary school children or teaching one-shot lessons to older students in the use of databases at the request of teachers has little hope of making any lasting difference for learners. Academic librarians who encounter students with these compressed experiences, or no instruction in inquiry at all, complain about students who are unprepared to do inquiry their first year in college. College librarians used to doing one-shot database instructions have made strides in their most recent ACRL Standards (1) documents by advocating embedding inquiry into the curriculums of the various disciplines. Across the age groups, a better way seems to encourage the integration and coteaching of inquiry into classroom learning experiences as a part of instructional time. The research about teaching skills at the point of need, or “just in time,” makes it plain to see that embedded approaches are far superior to isolated and separate curriculums.

Today, the trends in high quality inquiry point to:

  • Mentoring students to create their own engaging questions that they care about.
  • The location of high quality information is much more complex than ever before, even when computer algorithms are at the fingertips on a preferred device.
  • New ways of summarizing and mapping of central ideas are more sophisticated than it used to be in an information-poor world.
  • The research paper is just one of a plethora of ways to create a product during inquiry.
  • Sharing out just what I know is only one step in the deeper understanding of what fellow inquirers know and understand.
  • And, honest reflection about progress during the inquiry process is critical in a world needing better critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity.

It is very instructive to examine various models of inquiry that have been created before as the professional staff of the LLC create a model that they will use across the school. Comparing what has been created by the experts can help stimulate ideas. Check out the following collection of inquiry models:

As students themselves are introduced to the concept of inquiry, they will also want to create their own model that grows in sophistication as they grow as learners. Having them draw their own models as a part of a reflective Big Think (2) after a research experience helps them begin to come into command of their own learning. This is a priceless gift to give them.

The Emergence of Design Thinking

A trend in business and industry today is to assemble a variety of minds with varying expertise in search of a new and innovative product. The concept was developed by IDEO and their toolkit can be downloaded at: https://www.ideo.com/post/design-kit

Since its introduction, a variety of design thinking models have emerged. Some of them can be seen at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1awkvi53EazeQi_vk3afWkL_xTaO7_EV3v8swMqFsbiw/edit

Librarians and other professional staff of the LLC have discovered that by weaving design thinking and inquiry together, the resulting learning experiences become more powerful. As young learners begin to investigate the creation of a new product, invention, strategy or project, they will often discover that they need more background knowledge than they possess. Thus, they can rely on inquiry methods to build enough background or connections to existing world practices that will help them on their way. The one drawback is, however, that traditional ideas may be a drag on creative thinking and actual innovation, so learners/inventors often have to reject what other people have invented to solve a problem. The challenge is often to ignore the "cannots" of the past and start afresh.


Help in creating cotaught Design Thinking learning experiences is at: https://sites.google.com/view/umbrellacreation/home

Footnotes

(1) ACRL Framework for Information Literacy is at: http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework

(2) For a guide to the metacognitive activity known as the Big Think, consult: Loertscher, David V., Carol Koechlin, and Sandi Zwaan. Big Think: Nine Metacognitive Strategies that Make the Unit End Just the Beginning of Learning. Hi Willow Research * Publishing, 2009.

Resources

  • Helping individual students to manage their time by Ronnie Arnold: https://sites.google.com/sjsu.edu/organization
  • Helping groups of learners organize their time by Ronnie Arnold: https://sites.google.com/sjsu.edu/grouporganization/home
  • For numerous ways to measure the impact of inquiry, consult chapter 7 of the companion volume: We Boost Teaching and Learning by David Loertscher and available from LMCSource.com
  • An informative essay of inquiry and design thinking that would be better if a teacher librarian would be in the mix: https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/51580/four-inquiry-qualities-at-the-heart-of-student-centered-teaching
  • Martinez, S. L., & Stager, G. (2013). Invent to learn: Making, tinkering, and engineering in the classroom. Torrance, CA: Constructing Modern Knowledge Press.
  • Rothstein, D., & Santana, L. (2014). Make just one change: Teach students to ask their own questions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.
  • Berger, W., Quinlan, M., & Brilliance Audio (Firm). (2014). A more beautiful question: The power of inquiry to spark breakthrough ideas. Grand Haven, MI: Brilliance Audio. More information can also be found at http://amorebeautifulquestion.com/
  • Maniotes, Leslie K. Inquiry Design in Action: Elementary School. Libraries Unlimited, 2018.
  • Koechlin, Carol., and SandiZwaan. Q Tasks: How to empower students to ask questions and care about answers. Toronto: Pembroke Publishers Ltd., 2014.