IDEAS

Model 1: Levels of Inquiry

“The important thing to remember if you are going to adopt [inquiry-based learning] is to gauge how much experience and prior knowledge your students have doing inquiry-based tasks so you can determine the amount of direction you need to give them.”²

Learning Intention

In any inquiry-based learning approach, success depends on matching the level of inquiry with student capabilities. Understanding your students’ level of readiness to engage in inquiry-based learning approaches will help you select the most appropriate level of inquiry for them to be successful.² Levels of Inquiry will help you determine which learning tasks should be modeled/performed by the teacher, by the students, or in cooperation with one another.

Overview

Inquiry-based learning is a teaching approach that engages learners in asking questions and exploring responses, putting students in the role of discovering information for themselves and teachers in a more facilitative, rather than instructive, role. Some students are prepared to take on the responsibility of directing their own learning while others need more guidance. If a learning task is too difficult, students will get frustrated, and if it is too easy, they will get bored.² Instructors can appropriately plan, structure, and implement inquiry-based learning practices for any class by assessing students’ current capabilities, both in content and in process, and assigning roles accordingly.

Traditional instruction assigns the teacher to perform each step in the inquiry process as a model to students. As the levels of inquiry advance, from structured to guided to student-directed, students take on more and more responsibility. Faculty should identify a starting-point and then help students progress through increasingly student-driven levels of inquiry as the course progresses.²

Instructions

1. Identify the major learning tasks involved in the lesson plan. You might use the 5-E Model (or one of the many similar models) for developing a plan.
2. Assess students’ current knowledge and skills related to the topic and the learning tasks. You could create a formal pre-test, with questions that focus on the topic as well as questions that ask students how prepared they feel to take on learning tasks like finding credible resources, conducting experiments, analyzing statistics, or writing reports. For a more informal approach, ask students open-ended questions to discuss orally or in writing, or have students create mind-maps identifying what they know about the topic or how they would go about learning more.
3. Delegate roles based on capabilities. You might decide to model certain steps in the inquiry process for students or assign students to groups so that more advanced students are paired with less prepared students.

	Traditional	Structured	Guided	Student Directed	Student Research
Topic	Teacher	Teacher	Teacher	Teacher	Teacher/ Student
Question	Teacher	Teacher	Teacher	Teacher/ Student	Student
Materials	Teacher	Teacher	Teacher	Student	Student
Procedures/ Design	Teacher	Teacher	Teacher/ Student	Student	Student
Results/ Analysis	Teacher	Teacher/ Student	Student	Student	Student
Conclusions	Teacher	Student	Student	Student	Student

4. Monitor student performance and adjust responsibilities accordingly. Regularly assess students’ progress, formally and/or informally, to gather information and provide feedback. If students get stuck, offer more directed guidance. As students develop new skills, let them take on more of the learning tasks themselves.

Considerations

• The same lesson can be implemented at various levels of inquiry simply by re-assigning the learning tasks. The Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence at Penn State University developed a color-coded sample identifying how to implement a single lesson at varying levels of inquiry.
• Guided inquiry might be more useful for getting students to develop a common understanding of the same idea, whereas open- or student-directed inquiry is more useful for encouraging students to develop disciplinary practices and ways of thinking.¹
• Use clear rubrics to communicate expectations to students and guide your assessment of students learning. Look for sample rubrics other faculty have used or follow the IBL Rubric Development Guide or the tips on CIIA’s Rubric Resource to construct your own rubric.
  

References

1. Acevedo-Gutierrez, A., Borda, E., DeBari, S., Donovan, D., & Linneman, S. (2016)
   
   A Learning-Cycle approach to Guided Inquiry in a Four-Course Interdisciplinary Science Series. Innovative Teaching Showcase, Center for Instructional Innovation and Assessment, Western Washington University. Available online.
2. Lane, J. L. (July 2007). Inquiry-based Learning. Published at Schreyer Institute for
   Teaching Excellence, Penn State University. Available online.