Phase One is where you will develop a real question, explore the question with your class and begin your inquiry with the end in mind. This process is flexible and it is important to be responsive to the twists and turns that might exist as your students dive in. The loose steps that follow can be done by you as the teacher alone but will be richer if you are able to include your students where it is age appropriate:

Be intentional about building student engagement from the start of the inquiry

• Who are your students? What are their passions? What curiosities do they have about the world around them? What would they be doing if they weren’t in school?

Develop a real question

• Identify a curricular big idea that inspires the interest of your students
• Rewrite the big idea by making it an open ended Why or How question
• Collect student questions based on the big idea

Choose curricular competencies

• You can find curricular competencies from the same curriculum as the big idea or another curriculum to embed in your inquiry
• You will develop your assessment around these competencies

Write I CAN statements that will guide your formative and summative assessment

• Rewrite the curricular competencies that you have chosen as I CAN statements that you can work towards as a class throughout the inquiry

Phase Two is the exploration phase. Here you’ll act as a coach, while your students explore data and ideas, engage in discussions and decide where to go next. Again, the process is flexible and driven by your students’ interest!

Research

• Brainstorm ways students might seek out answers to their questions through:
• Observation
• Experiments
• Information from various sources. For example, print books and digital sources
• Personal interviews with family members, community experts and First Nations elders
• A “research morning”, where groups of students seek out and interview knowledgeable staff.
• Your students will need varying levels of support with their research. This is a great time to teach mini lessons to build your students information literacy skills.

Record

• Decide how your students are going to document their learning. Some classes use notebooks, chart paper, or a KWL chart on a board, while others prefer devices and platforms like Teams to share data.
• A class inquiry board, like the one below, might be useful for everyone to see how your groups are working with the inquiry cycle. Students might put a post-it note on the board each session to show where they are working.

Reflect & Refine

• Hold regular class meetings for groups to check in. If rich conversations are occurring, all is well!
• Use your chosen curricular competencies as the basis of frequent conversation
• Teach skills based mini-lessons where necessary, e.g., “How to Conduct an Interview”, “How to Take Notes”
• Students should be allowed to refine or change their question as they explore.
• This is a new process for everyone, so be prepared to manage energy and emotions, as well as group dynamics. This is a good place to teach and practice SEL skills!

Phase three is the action phase. Now that your students know and understand at least some of the issues around and answers to their question, what do they want to do?

Demonstrate Learning

• Some students might just present their question and an answer to the class
• Some might want to create, invent or build something in response to what they’ve learned
• If it’s relevant, students often enjoy presenting their learning to an outside audience, such as another teacher, TL or an expert from the community
• Any questions or new passions they’ve discovered can be the basis of a new round of inquiry

Assessment & Debrief Ideas:

• It’s important to note that the content of student inquiry is not assessed, only growth in the competencies.
• After groups have gone through at least one cycle of inquiry, students could write about and/or discuss their experience with the process.
• Curricular Competencies: Use the “I Can” statements as the basis for discussion and assessment throughout the inquiry. Student self assessment of these statements is another way to build core competencies. The proficiency scale can help them determine where they are at and where they want to go.