Continue the Engagement stage: Guide individuals/groups through the formulation of a problem, question, project, or invention they are passionate about
Here is where the first steps of inquiry kick in as learners try to build enough background knowledge in order to build a solid question or goals and objectives that will launch them into their project.
For example, when there was a school shooting in a community nearby, students were asking whether they were safe. But before they could get a start on that question, they needed all kinds of information about how visitors gain access to their school, district policies, state laws, and whether the current system was really enforced before they could develop a more focused question about the system of access at their school. They discovered that they needed not only to question the system that got visitors into the front door of the school but they needed to look for other ways that someone might use to get in other doors, fences or parts of the school property. The real question proved to be more complex than they had thought about before.
Define and Ideate: the Problem: Help learners discover the knowledge and skills they will need in order to accomplish their task
As students begin to attack their project or problem, they often discover that they do not know enough or have the skills they need to make any headway.
In a real example from a middle school in Denver, Colorado, the principal visited a class where project based learning was getting started and announced that the city had just called him wanting to do something about the stinky swamp at the edge of school property that neighbors were complaining about. The city was proposing that the swamp be paved over. So the principal asked the class what they thought. Half the class wanted to help conduct an investigation. They soon discovered they needed to know many components in order to do so:
Continue Ideate and Prototype: Have regular meetings/conferences to note progress, problems and to teach process skills
In one one private school in Vancouver, B.C., the adult mentors created 8 lessons about the process of inquiry that they taught during the duration of the project. The first time, these lessons followed in a very systematic way. The second time, they relaxed their direct teaching approach to help individuals or small groups “just in time.” Reflecting back, they decided that the first approach was too rigid and the second too lax. They are re-grouping to try to find the best mix of teaching process skills for their students.