Inquiry in the Classroom

The video clips listed below were filmed at the New York PS 153 school during a unit on the New York Civil War Draft Riots. Each video clip represents one of the phases in the Stripling Model of Inquiry.

1. Inquiry & Primary Sources Overview (3.5 min) Using primary sources with inquiry empowers students to ask their own questions, construct their own understandings, draw conclusions, create new knowledge, and share the knowledge with others. Watch Barbara Stripling discuss why primary sources are essential to the inquiry process. Transcript

2. Inquiry Process: Wonder (2 min) Students develop focus questions to guide their investigations while wondering during the inquiry process. In this video Jacqueline Brathwait guides students in a discussion on what they already know about the Draft Riots and support them as they begin to develop questions for further exploration. Transcript

3. Inquiry Process: Connect (4.5 min) Primary sources can be used during the initial phase of inquiry to open students' minds to the possibility of interpreting and questioning an information source. In this short video Shelly Sanderson uses a map to connect the students to the topic in order to gain background knowledge and context about the events of the New York Draft Riots. Transcript

4. Inquiry Process: Investigate (6 min) When investigating, students evaluate information to answer questions and test hypotheses. Watch as Earnestine Sweeting has her students use the Library of Congress primary source analysis tool to further investigate events from the New York Draft Riots. Transcript

5. Inquiry Process: Construct (4 min) The most challenging part of any teaching practice is to have students construct knowledge. Teachers must guide students to organize and draw conclusions from information they have found, to confront conflicting ideas and form their own evidence-based opinions, and to be ready to take a stand and defend it. Watch as Shelly Sanderson's students construct new understanding by using evidence from photographic images of New York City. Transcript

6. Inquiry Process: Reflect (3:00) Inquiry is a cycle. Reflection is embedded throughout the inquiry process, but it is especially important at the end of a learning experience for students to think about what they have learned about the topic or idea and about inquiry itself. This video shows what new understandings and perspectives the students share with Jacqueline Braithwaite. Transcript

Write About It (in Canvas Tutorial 6)

1. Examine the Stripling Model of Inquiry. What did you notice first and why do you think it is important for classroom teachers today?

2. Select one primary source from the Library of Congress Primary Source Sets. In your reflection, list the title and URL for the primary source and explain how you would use it to demonstrate one or more of the six phases of the Stripling Inquiry model to K-12 students or teachers in a PD workshop.