inquiry based learning critical thinking

Inquiry-Based Learning: A Comprehensive Guide for Teachers

Welcome to the world of inquiry-based learning!

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re already familiar with traditional forms of education, where the teacher is the primary source of knowledge. Students are expected to absorb information passively. However, inquiry-based learning flips this model on its head, putting students at the center of their learning journey and empowering them to ask questions, seek answers, and actively engage with the material.

But why should you consider incorporating inquiry-based learning into your classroom? Here are just a few of the many benefits:

Engagement in the Learning Process

One of the key benefits of inquiry-based learning is the ability to engage students in the learning process. When students are given the opportunity to explore a topic that interests them and are encouraged to ask questions and seek answers, they become more invested in the material. This can lead to increased motivation, attention, and retention of information.

Inquiry-based learning also provides an excellent opportunity for students to develop their critical thinking and problem-solving skills. By posing questions and seeking answers, students are encouraged to think critically about the topic and evaluate and analyze information. This helps them to develop the skills they need to solve complex problems and make informed decisions.

Working Together and Getting Creative

Foster Creativity and Innovation

Inquiry-based learning can also foster creativity and innovation in students. When students are free to explore a topic and come up with their own ideas and solutions, they are more likely to think outside the box and come up with creative and innovative approaches. This can be especially beneficial in subjects like science and technology, where students are encouraged to think creatively to solve real-world problems.

Encourage Collaboration and Teamwork

Inquiry-based learning can also be an excellent way to encourage collaboration and teamwork among students. When students work together to explore a topic and seek answers, they have the opportunity to share their ideas and perspectives and to learn from one another. This can help to build strong working relationships and foster a sense of community within the classroom.

Develop Communication Skills

Inquiry-based learning can also support the development of communication skills in students. By posing questions and seeking answers, students are encouraged to communicate their ideas and findings to their classmates and teachers. This can help them to develop their oral and written communication skills, as well as their ability to present information effectively.

Think About It

Support the Development of Higher-Order Thinking Skills

Inquiry-based learning can also be an excellent way to support the development of higher-order thinking skills in students. By encouraging students to think critically and to evaluate and analyze information, inquiry-based learning can help students to develop skills like analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and application. These skills are essential for success in higher education and in the workforce.

Support the Development of Self-Regulation and Metacognitive Skills

Inquiry-based learning can also support the development of self-regulation and metacognitive skills in students. By allowing students to take control of their learning and to set their own goals, inquiry-based learning can help students to develop self-regulation skills like time management, organization, and goal-setting. Additionally, by encouraging students to think critically about their learning and to reflect on their progress, inquiry-based learning can help them develop metacognitive skills like self-monitoring, self-assessment, and self-direction.

Inquiry-based learning can also be an excellent way to develop research skills in students. By posing questions and seeking answers, students are encouraged to find and evaluate sources of information and to use this information to support their ideas and conclusions. This can help them to develop the skills they need to conduct research effectively, whether for a school project or in their future careers.

Develop Digital Literacy Skills

In the digital age, it is more important than ever for students to develop digital literacy skills. Inquiry-based learning can be an excellent way to support the development of these skills, as students are often encouraged to use technology and the internet to find and evaluate information. This can help students to develop skills like internet search, online research, and digital citizenship.

In the Real World

Develop Real-World Problem-Solving Skills

Inquiry-based learning can also be an excellent way to develop real-world problem-solving skills in students. By encouraging students to think critically and to explore real-world issues and problems, inquiry-based learning can help students to develop the skills they need to solve complex problems and make informed decisions in their personal and professional lives.

Develop Cultural Competencies

Inquiry-based learning can also support the development of cultural competencies in students. By allowing students to explore different cultures and perspectives, inquiry-based learning can help students to develop an understanding and appreciation of diversity. This can be especially important in today’s globalized world, where cultural competency is essential for success in both education and the workforce.

Develop Global Citizenship Skills

Inquiry-based learning can also be an excellent way to develop global citizenship skills in students. By encouraging students to think critically about global issues and to consider the perspectives of others, inquiry-based learning can help students to develop the skills they need to be responsible and engaged global citizens.

Develop Ethical Reasoning Skills

Inquiry-based learning can also support the development of ethical reasoning skills in students. By encouraging students to think critically about ethical dilemmas and to consider different perspectives, inquiry-based learning can help students to develop the skills they need to make informed and ethical decisions.

Implementing Inquiry-Based Learning in the Classroom

Now that we’ve covered some of the many benefits of inquiry-based learning, you may wonder how to implement it effectively in your classroom. Here are a few best practices and strategies to consider:

Start small: If you’re new to inquiry-based learning, it can be helpful to start small and gradually build up to more complex projects. This can help you to get a feel for the approach and to identify any challenges or obstacles you may encounter.

Set clear goals and objectives: It’s important to have clear goals and objectives for your inquiry-based learning project so that students understand what is expected of them and can stay focused on their learning.

Encourage student choice: Allowing students to choose their own topics or projects can be an excellent way to engage them in the learning process and foster a sense of ownership over their work.

Use a variety of resources: Encourage students to use a variety of resources, including books, articles, websites, and interviews, to gather information and ideas for their projects.

Encourage collaboration: Inquiry-based learning can be an excellent opportunity for students to work together and learn from one another. Encourage students to collaborate and share their ideas and findings with their classmates.

Differentiate instruction: It’s important to remember that all students learn differently, so it’s essential to differentiate instruction to meet the needs of all learners. This may involve providing different resources or activities for students, or offering different levels of support or challenge.

Incorporate technology: Technology can be a powerful tool for inquiry-based learning, as it gives students access to a wealth of information and resources. Consider incorporating technology into your inquiry-based learning projects, whether it be through the use of computers, tablets, or other devices. Just be sure to teach students how to use these tools responsibly and ethically.

Assessing Student Learning and Progress in an Inquiry-Based Learning Environment

Effective assessment is essential for ensuring student learning and progress in any educational setting, and this is no different in an inquiry-based learning environment. Here are a few strategies and methods to consider:

Traditional assessments: While traditional methods of assessment, such as exams and quizzes, can still be useful in an inquiry-based learning environment, it’s important to keep in mind that they may not always be the most effective way to assess student learning.

Alternative assessments: Alternative assessment methods, such as projects, presentations, portfolios, and essays, can be more effective in an inquiry-based learning environment, as they allow students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills in a more authentic and meaningful way.

Formative assessments: Formative assessments, designed to provide ongoing feedback to students and teachers, can be beneficial in an inquiry-based learning environment. These assessments can help students to track their progress and to identify areas where they need additional support or challenge.

Summative assessments: Summative assessments, designed to evaluate student learning at the end of a unit or course, can also be useful in an inquiry-based learning environment. These assessments can provide a more comprehensive picture of student learning and can be used to inform instruction and make decisions about student progress.

Gathering and analyzing data: It’s essential to gather and analyze data on student learning and progress in an inquiry-based learning environment. This can be done through various methods, such as student self-assessment, teacher observation, and assessment of student work. By analyzing this data, teachers can identify areas of strength and areas where students may need additional support or challenge.

What is the Difference Between Inquiry-based learning and Project-based Learning?

Inquiry-based learning and project-based learning are similar in that they both involve students in active, hands-on learning experiences. However, there are some key differences between the two approaches.

Inquiry-based learning is an approach to education that focuses on students asking questions, seeking answers, and actively engaging with the material. It encourages students to explore a topic or issue, to think critically and creatively, and to come up with their own ideas and solutions. Inquiry-based learning is often open-ended and allows for student choice and creativity.

Project-based learning, on the other hand, is an approach that involves students in a long-term, in-depth investigation of a real-world problem or challenge. Projects often have a clear outcome or product, such as a presentation, report, or prototype. Project-based learning can be more structured than inquiry-based learning, as it often has specific goals and objectives that students must meet.

While both approaches involve active, hands-on learning, the focus of inquiry-based learning is on the process of exploring and discovering, while the focus of project-based learning is on the product or outcome. Both approaches can be effective in engaging students and supporting their learning, and many teachers use elements of both in their classrooms.

Inquiry-based learning is an approach to education that puts students at the center of their own learning journey and empowers them to ask questions, seek answers, and actively engage with the material. With its numerous benefits, including the development of critical thinking and problem-solving skills, the fostering of creativity and innovation, and the encouragement of collaboration and teamwork, it’s no wonder that inquiry-based learning is becoming increasingly popular in classrooms worldwide.

If you’re interested in incorporating inquiry-based learning into your classroom, we encourage you to explore the additional resources and references provided below. With careful planning and creativity, you can create an engaging and meaningful learning experience for your students.

Please comment and share if you found this helpful!

THANK YOU! 😊

Additional Resources and References

• The Inquiry-Based Learning Page ( https://www.inquirybasedlearning.org/ )
• Inquiry-Based Learning: What It Is and Why It’s Important ( https://www.edutopia.org/article/inquiry-based-learning-what-it-why-its-important )
• 10 Tips for Implementing Inquiry-Based Learning ( https://www.edutopia.org/article/10-tips-implementing-inquiry-based-learning )
• Assessing Inquiry-Based Learning ( https://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar12/vol69/num06/Assessing-Inquiry-Based-Learning.aspx )

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Inquiry and critical thinking skills for the next generation: from artificial intelligence back to human intelligence

• Jonathan Michael Spector   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6270-3073 1 &
• Shanshan Ma 1  

Smart Learning Environments volume  6 , Article number:  8 ( 2019 ) Cite this article

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Along with the increasing attention to artificial intelligence (AI), renewed emphasis or reflection on human intelligence (HI) is appearing in many places and at multiple levels. One of the foci is critical thinking. Critical thinking is one of four key 21st century skills – communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity. Though most people are aware of the value of critical thinking, it lacks emphasis in curricula. In this paper, we present a comprehensive definition of critical thinking that ranges from observation and inquiry to argumentation and reflection. Given a broad conception of critical thinking, a developmental approach beginning with children is suggested as a way to help develop critical thinking habits of mind. The conclusion of this analysis is that more emphasis should be placed on developing human intelligence, especially in young children and with the support of artificial intelligence. While much funding and support goes to the development of artificial intelligence, this should not happen at the expense of human intelligence. Overall, the purpose of this paper is to argue for more attention to the development of human intelligence with an emphasis on critical thinking.

Introduction

In recent decades, advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have developed at an incredible rate. AI has penetrated into people’s daily life on a variety of levels such as smart homes, personalized healthcare, security systems, self-service stores, and online shopping. One notable AI achievement was when AlphaGo, a computer program, defeated the World Go Champion Mr. Lee Sedol in 2016. In the previous year, AlphaGo won in a competition against a professional Go player (Silver et al. 2016 ). As Go is one of the most challenging games, the wins of AI indicated a breakthrough. Public attention has been further drawn to AI since then, and AlphaGo continues to improve. In 2017, a new version of AlphaGo beat Ke Jie, the current world No.1 ranking Go player. Clearly AI can manage high levels of complexity.

Given many changes and multiple lines of development and implement, it is somewhat difficult to define AI to include all of the changes since the 1980s (Luckin et al. 2016 ). Many definitions incorporate two dimensions as a starting point: (a) human-like thinking, and (b) rational action (Russell and Norvig 2009 ). Basically, AI is a term used to label machines (computers) that imitate human cognitive functions such as learning and problem solving, or that manage to deal with complexity as well as human experts.

AlphaGo’s wins against human players were seen as a comparison between artificial and human intelligence. One concern is that AI has already surpassed HI; other concerns are that AI will replace humans in some settings or that AI will become uncontrollable (Epstein 2016 ; Fang et al. 2018 ). Scholars worry that AI technology in the future might trigger the singularity (Good 1966 ), a hypothesized future that the development of technology becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unfathomable changes to human civilization (Vinge 1993 ).

The famous theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking warned that AI might end mankind, yet the technology he used to communicate involved a basic form of AI (Cellan-Jones 2014 ). This example highlights one of the basic dilemmas of AI – namely, what are the overall benefits of AI versus its potential drawbacks, and how to move forward given its rapid development? Obviously, basic or controllable AI technologies are not what people are afraid of. Spector et al. 1993 distinguished strong AI and weak AI. Strong AI involves an application that is intended to replace an activity performed previously by a competent human, while weak AI involves an application that aims to enable a less experienced human to perform at a much higher level. Other researchers categorize AI into three levels: (a) artificial narrow intelligence (Narrow AI), (b) artificial general intelligence (General AI), and (c) artificial super intelligence (Super AI) (Siau and Yang 2017 ; Zhang and Xie 2018 ). Narrow AI, sometimes called weak AI, refers to a computer that focus on a narrow task such as AlphaZero or a self-driving car. General AI, sometimes referred to as strong AI, is the simulation of human-level intelligence, which can perform more cognitive tasks as well as most humans do. Super AI is defined by Bostrom ( 1998 ) as “an intellect that is much smarter than the best human brains in practically every field, including scientific creativity, general wisdom and social skills” (p.1).

Although the consequence of singularity and its potential benefits or harm to the human race have been intensely debated, an undeniable fact is that AI is capable of undertaking recursive self-improvement. With the increasing improvement of this capability, more intelligent generations of AI will appear rapidly. On the other hand, HI has its own limits and its development requires continuous efforts and investment from generation to generation. Education is the main approach humans use to develop and improve HI. Given the extraordinary growth gap between AI and HI, eventually AI can surpass HI. However, that is no reason to neglect the development and improvement of HI. In addition, in contrast to the slow development rate of HI, the growth of funding support to AI has been rapidly increasing according to the following comparison of support for artificial and human intelligence.

The funding support for artificial and human intelligence

There are challenges in comparing artificial and human intelligence by identifying funding for both. Both terms are somewhat vague and can include a variety of aspects. Some analyses will include big data and data analytics within the sphere of artificial intelligence and others will treat them separately. Some will include early childhood developmental research within the sphere of support for HI and others treat them separately. Education is a major way of human beings to develop and improve HI. The investments in education reflect the efforts put on the development of HI, and they pale in comparison with investments in AI.

Sources also vary from governmental funding of research and development to business and industry investments in related research and development. Nonetheless, there are strong indications of increased funding support for AI in North America, Europe and Asia, especially in China. The growth in funding for AI around the world is explosive. According to ZDNet, AI funding more than doubled from 2016 to 2017 and more than tripled from 2016 to 2018. The growth in funding for AI in the last 10 years has been exponential. According to Venture Scanner, there are approximately 2500 companies that have raised $60 billion in funding from 3400 investors in 72 different countries (see https://www.slideshare.net/venturescanner/artificial-intelligence-q1-2019-report-highlights ). Areas included in the Venture Scanner analysis included virtual assistants, recommendation engines, video recognition, context-aware computing, speech recognition, natural language processing, machine learning, and more.

The above data on AI funding focuses primarily on companies making products. There is no direct counterpart in the area of HI where the emphasis is on learning and education. What can be seen, however, are trends within each area. The above data suggest exponential growth in support for AI. In contrast, according to the Urban Institute, per-student funding in the USA has been relatively flat for nearly two decades, with a few states showing modest increases and others showing none (see http://apps.urban.org/features/education-funding-trends/ ). Funding for education is complicated due to the various sources. In the USA, there are local, state and federal sources to consider. While that mixture of funding sources is complex, it is clear that federal and state spending for education in the USA experienced an increase after World War II. However, since the 1980s, federal spending for education has steadily declined, and state spending on education in most states has declined since 2010 according to a government report (see https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/education_spending ). This decline in funding reflects the decreasing emphasis on the development of HI, which is a dangerous signal.

Decreased support for education funding in the USA is not typical of what is happening in other countries, according to The Hechinger Report (see https://hechingerreport.org/rest-world-invests-education-u-s-spends-less/ ). For example, in the period of 2010 to 2014, American spending on elementary and high school education declined 3%, whereas in the same period, education spending in the 35 countries in the OECD rose by 5% with some countries experiencing very significant increases (e.g., 76% in Turkey).

Such data can be questioned in terms of how effectively funds are being spent or how poorly a country was doing prior to experiencing a significant increase. However, given the performance of American students on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), the relative lack of funding support in the USA is roughly related with the mediocre performance on PISA tests (see https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/pisa2015/index.asp ). Research by Darling-Hammond ( 2014 ) indicated that in order to improve learning and reduce the achievement gap, systematic government investments in high-need schools would be more effective if the focus was on capacity building, improving the knowledge and skills of educators and the quality of curriculum opportunities.

Though HI could not be simply defined by the performance on PISA test, improving HI requires systematic efforts and funding support in high-need areas as well. So, in the following section, we present a reflection on HI.

Reflection on human intelligence

Though there is a variety of definitions of HI, from the perspective of psychology, according to Sternberg ( 1999 ), intelligence is a form of developing expertise, from a novice or less experienced person to an expert or more experienced person, a student must be through multiple learning (implicit and explicit) and thinking (critical and creative) processes. In this paper, we adopted such a view and reflected on HI in the following section by discussing learning and critical thinking.

What is learning?

We begin with Gagné’s ( 1985 ) definition of learning as characterized by stable and persistent changes in what a person knows or can do. How do humans learn? Do you recall how to prove that the square root of 2 is not a rational number, something you might have learned years ago? The method is intriguing and is called an indirect proof or a reduction to absurdity – assume that the square root of 2 is a rational number and then apply truth preserving rules to arrive at a contradiction to show that the square root of 2 cannot be a rational number. We recommend this as an exercise for those readers who have never encountered that method of learning and proof. (see https://artofproblemsolving.com/wiki/index.php/Proof_by_contradiction ). Yet another interesting method of learning is called the process of elimination, sometimes accredited to Arthur Conan Doyle’s ( 1926 ) in The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier – Sherlock Holmes says to Dr. Watson that the process of elimination “starts upon the supposition that when you have eliminated all which is impossible, that whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth ” (see https://www.dfw-sherlock.org/uploads/3/7/3/8/37380505/1926_november_the_adventure_of_the_blanched_soldier.pdf ).

The reason to mention Sherlock Holmes early in this paper is to emphasize the role that observation plays in learning. The character Sherlock Holmes was famous for his observation skills that led to his so-called method of deductive reasoning (a process of elimination), which is what logicians would classify as inductive reasoning as the conclusions of that reasoning process are primarily probabilistic rather than certain, unlike the proof of the irrationality of the square root of 2 mentioned previously.

In dealing with uncertainty, it seems necessary to make observations and gather evidence that can lead one to a likely conclusion. Is that not what reasonable people and accomplished detectives do? It is certainly what card counters do at gambling houses; they observe high and low value cards that have already been played in order to estimate the likelihood of the next card being a high or low value card. Observation is a critical process in dealing with uncertainty.

Moreover, humans typically encounter many uncertain situations in the course of life. Few people encounter situations which require resolution using a mathematical proof such as the one with which this article began. Jonassen ( 2000 , 2011 ) argued that problem solving is one of the most important and frequent activities in which people engage. Moreover, many of the more challenging problems are ill-structured in the sense that (a) there is incomplete information pertaining to the situation, or (b) the ideal resolution of the problem is unknown, or (c) how to transform a problematic situation into an acceptable situation is unclear. In short, people are confronted with uncertainty nearly every day and in many different ways. The so called key 21st century skills of communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity (the 4 Cs; see http://www.battelleforkids.org/networks/p21 ) are important because uncertainty is a natural and inescapable aspect of the human condition. The 4 Cs are interrelated and have been presented by Spector ( 2018 ) as interrelated capabilities involving logic and epistemology in the form of the new 3Rs – namely, re-examining, reasoning, and reflecting. Re-examining is directly linked to observation as a beginning point for inquiry. The method of elimination is one form of reasoning in which a person engages to solve challenging problems. Reflecting on how well one is doing in the life-long enterprise of solving challenging problems is a higher kind of meta-cognitive activity in which accomplished problem-solvers engage (Ericsson et al. 1993 ; Flavell 1979 ).

Based on these initial comments, a comprehensive definition of critical thinking is presented next in the form of a framework.

A framework of critical thinking

Though there is variety of definitions of critical thinking, a concise definition of critical thinking remains elusive. For delivering a direct understanding of critical thinking to readers such as parents and school teachers, in this paper, we present a comprehensive definition of critical thinking through a framework that includes many of the definitions offered by others. Critical thinking, as treated broadly herein, is a multi-dimensioned and multifaceted human capability. Critical thinking has been interpreted from three perspectives: education, psychology, and epistemology, all of which are represented in the framework that follows.

In a developmental approach to critical thinking, Spector ( 2019 ) argues that critical thinking involves a series of cumulative and related abilities, dispositions and other variables (e.g., motivation, criteria, context, knowledge). This approach proceeds from experience (e.g., observing something unusual) and then to various forms of inquiry, investigation, examination of evidence, exploration of alternatives, argumentation, testing conclusions, rethinking assumptions, and reflecting on the entire process.

Experience and engagement are ongoing throughout the process which proceeds from relatively simple experiences (e.g., direct and immediate observation) to more complex interactions (e.g., manipulation of an actual or virtual artifact and observing effects).

The developmental approach involves a variety of mental processes and non-cognitive states, which help a person’s decision making to become purposeful and goal directed. The associated critical thinking skills enable individuals to be likely to achieve a desired outcome in a challenging situation.

In the process of critical thinking, apart from experience, there are two additional cognitive capabilities essential to critical thinking – namely, metacognition and self-regulation . Many researchers (e.g., Schraw et al. 2006 ) believe that metacognition has two components: (a) awareness and understanding of one’s own thoughts, and (b) the ability to regulate one’s own cognitive processes. Some other researchers put more emphasis on the latter component. For example, Davies ( 2015 ) described metacognition as the capacity to monitor the quality of one’s thinking process, and then to make appropriate changes. However, the American Psychology Association (APA) defines metacognition as an awareness and understanding of one’s own thought with the ability to control related cognitive processes (see https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2008-15725-005 ).

Although the definition and elaboration of these two concepts deserve further exploration, they are often used interchangeably (Hofer and Sinatra 2010 ; Schunk 2008 ). Many psychologists see the two related capabilities of metacognition and self-regulation as being closely related - two sides on one coin, so to speak. Metacognition involves or emphasizes awareness, whereas self-regulation involves and emphasizes appropriate control. These two concepts taken together enable a person to create a self-regulatory mechanism, which monitors and regulates the corresponding skills (e.g., observation, inquiry, interpretation, explanation, reasoning, analysis, evaluation, synthesis, reflection, and judgement).

As to the critical thinking skills, it should be noted that there is much discussion about the generalizability and domain specificity of them, just as there is about problem-solving skills in general (Chi et al. 1982 ; Chiesi et al. 1979 ; Ennis 1989 ; Fischer 1980 ). The research supports the notion that to achieve high levels of expertise and performance, one must develop high levels of domain knowledge. As a consequence, becoming a highly effective critical thinker in a particular domain of inquiry requires significant domain knowledge. One may achieve such levels in a domain in which one has significant domain knowledge and experience but not in a different domain in which one has little domain knowledge and experience. The processes involved in developing high levels of critical thinking are somewhat generic. Therefore, it is possible to develop critical thinking in nearly any domain when the two additional capabilities of metacognition and self-regulation are coupled with motivation and engagement and supportive emotional states (Ericsson et al. 1993 ).

Consequently, the framework presented here (see Fig. 1 ) is built around three main perspectives about critical thinking (i.e., educational, psychological and epistemological) and relevant learning theories. This framework provides a visual presentation of critical thinking with four dimensions: abilities (educational perspective), dispositions (psychological perspective), levels (epistemological perspective) and time. Time is added to emphasize the dynamic nature of critical thinking in terms of a specific context and a developmental approach.

Critical thinking often begins with simple experiences such as observing a difference, encountering a puzzling question or problem, questioning someone’s statement, and then leads, in some instances to an inquiry, and then to more complex experiences such as interactions and application of higher order thinking skills (e.g., logical reasoning, questioning assumptions, considering and evaluating alternative explanations).

If the individual is not interested in what was observed, an inquiry typically does not begin. Inquiry and critical thinking require motivation along with an inquisitive disposition. The process of critical thinking requires the support of corresponding internal indispositions such as open-mindedness and truth-seeking. Consequently, a disposition to initiate an inquiry (e.g., curiosity) along with an internal inquisitive disposition (e.g., that links a mental habit to something motivating to the individual) are both required (Hitchcock 2018 ). Initiating dispositions are those that contribute to the start of inquiry and critical thinking. Internal dispositions are those that initiate and support corresponding critical thinking skills during the process. Therefore, critical thinking dispositions consist of initiating dispositions and internal dispositions. Besides these factors, critical thinking also involves motivation. Motivation and dispositions are not mutually exclusive, for example, curiosity is a disposition and also a motivation.

Critical thinking abilities and dispositions are two main components of critical thinking, which involve such interrelated cognitive constructs as interpretation, explanation, reasoning, evaluation, synthesis, reflection, judgement, metacognition and self-regulation (Dwyer et al. 2014 ; Davies 2015 ; Ennis 2018 ; Facione 1990 ; Hitchcock 2018 ; Paul and Elder 2006 ). There are also some other abilities such as communication, collaboration and creativity, which are now essential in current society (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_century_skills ). Those abilities along with critical thinking are called the 4Cs; they are individually monitored and regulated through metacognitive and self-regulation processes.

The abilities involved in critical thinking are categorized in Bloom’s taxonomy into higher order skills (e.g., analyzing and synthesizing) and lower level skills (e.g., remembering and applying) (Anderson and Krathwohl 2001 ; Bloom et al. 1956 ).

The thinking process can be depicted as a spiral through both lower and higher order thinking skills. It encompasses several reasoning loops. Some of them might be iterative until a desired outcome is achieved. Each loop might be a mix of higher order thinking skills and lower level thinking skills. Each loop is subject to the self-regulatory mechanism of metacognition and self-regulation.

But, due to the complexity of human thinking, a specific spiral with reasoning loops is difficult to represent. Therefore, instead of a visualized spiral with an indefinite number of reasoning loops, the developmental stages of critical thinking are presented in the diagram (Fig. 1 ).

Besides, most of the definitions of critical thinking are based on the imagination about ideal critical thinkers such as the consensus generated from the Delphi report (Facione 1990 ). However, according to Dreyfus and Dreyfus ( 1980 ), in the course of developing an expertise, students would pass through five stages. Those five stages are “absolute beginner”, “advanced beginner”, “competent performer”, “proficient performer,” and “intuitive expert performer”. Dreyfus and Dreyfus ( 1980 ) described the five stages the result of the successive transformations of four mental functions: recollection, recognition, decision making, and awareness.

In the course of developing critical thinking and expertise, individuals will pass through similar stages which are accompanied with the increasing practices and accumulation of experience. Through the intervention and experience of developing critical thinking, as a novice, tasks are decomposed into context-free features which could be recognized by students without the experience of particular situations. For further improving, students need to be able to monitor their awareness, and with a considerable experience. They can note recurrent meaningful component patterns in some contexts. Gradually, increased practices expose students to a variety of whole situations which enable the students to recognize tasks in a more holistic manner as a professional. On the other hand, with the increasing accumulation of experience, individuals are less likely to depend simply on abstract principles. The decision will turn to something intuitive and highly situational as well as analytical. Students might unconsciously apply rules, principles or abilities. A high level of awareness is absorbed. At this stage, critical thinking is turned into habits of mind and in some cases expertise. The description above presents a process of critical thinking development evolving from a novice to an expert, eventually developing critical thinking into habits of mind.

We mention the five-stage model proposed by Dreyfus and Dreyfus ( 1980 ) to categorize levels of critical thinking and emphasize the developmental nature involved in becoming a critical thinker. Correspondingly, critical thinking is categorized into 5 levels: absolute beginner (novice), advanced beginner (beginner), competent performer (competent), proficient performer (proficient), and intuitive expert (expert).

Ability level and critical thinker (critical thinking) level together represent one of the four dimensions represented in Fig. 1 .

In addition, it is noteworthy that the other two elements of critical thinking are the context and knowledge in which the inquiry is based. Contextual and domain knowledge must be taken into account with regard to critical thinking, as previously argued. Besides, as Hitchcock ( 2018 ) argued, effective critical thinking requires knowledge about and experience applying critical thinking concepts and principles as well.

Critical thinking is considered valuable across disciplines. But except few courses such as philosophy, critical thinking is reported lacking in most school education. Most of researchers and educators thus proclaim that integrating critical thinking across the curriculum (Hatcher 2013 ). For example, Ennis ( 2018 ) provided a vision about incorporating critical thinking across the curriculum in higher education. Though people are aware of the value of critical thinking, few of them practice it. Between 2012 and 2015, in Australia, the demand of critical thinking as one of the enterprise skills for early-career job increased 125% (Statista Research Department, 2016). According to a survey across 1000 adults by The Reboot Foundation 2018 , more than 80% of respondents believed that critical thinking skills are lacking in today’s youth. Respondents were deeply concerned that schools do not teach critical thinking. Besides, the investigation also found that respondents were split over when and how to teach critical thinking, clearly.

In the previous analysis of critical thinking, we presented the mechanism of critical thinking instead of a concise definition. This is because, given the various perspectives of interpreting critical thinking, it is not easy to come out with an unitary definition, but it is essential for the public to understand how critical thinking works, the elements it involves and the relationships between them, so they can achieve an explicit understanding.

In the framework, critical thinking starts from simple experience such as observing a difference, then entering the stage of inquiry, inquiry does not necessarily turn the thinking process into critical thinking unless the student enters a higher level of thinking process or reasoning loops such as re-examining, reasoning, reflection (3Rs). Being an ideal critical thinker (or an expert) requires efforts and time.

According to the framework, simple abilities such as observational skills and inquiry are indispensable to lead to critical thinking, which suggests that paying attention to those simple skills at an early stage of children can be an entry point to critical thinking. Considering the child development theory by Piaget ( 1964 ), a developmental approach spanning multiple years can be employed to help children develop critical thinking at each corresponding development stage until critical thinking becomes habits of mind.

Although we emphasized critical thinking in this paper, for the improvement of intelligence, creative thinking and critical thinking are separable, they are both essential abilities that develop expertise, eventually drive the improvement of HI at human race level.

As previously argued, there is a similar pattern among students who think critically in different domains, but students from different domains might perform differently in creativity because of different thinking styles (Haller and Courvoisier 2010 ). Plus, students have different learning styles and preferences. Personalized learning has been the most appropriate approach to address those differences. Though the way of realizing personalized learning varies along with the development of technologies. Generally, personalized learning aims at customizing learning to accommodate diverse students based on their strengths, needs, interests, preferences, and abilities.

Meanwhile, the advancement of technology including AI is revolutionizing education; students’ learning environments are shifting from technology-enhanced learning environments to smart learning environments. Although lots of potentials are unrealized yet (Spector 2016 ), the so-called smart learning environments rely more on the support of AI technology such as neural networks, learning analytics and natural language processing. Personalized learning is better supported and realized in a smart learning environment. In short, in the current era, personalized learning is to use AI to help learners perform at a higher level making adjustments based on differences of learners. This is the notion with which we conclude – the future lies in using AI to improve HI and accommodating individual differences.

The application of AI in education has been a subject for decades. There are efforts heading to such a direction though personalized learning is not technically involved in them. For example, using AI technology to stimulate critical thinking (Zhu 2015 ), applying a virtual environment for building and assessing higher order inquiry skills (Ketelhut et al. 2010 ). Developing computational thinking through robotics (Angeli and Valanides 2019 ) is another such promising application of AI to support the development of HI.

However, almost all of those efforts are limited to laboratory experiments. For accelerating the development rate of HI, we argue that more emphasis should be given to the development of HI at scale with the support of AI, especially in young children focusing on critical and creative thinking.

In this paper, we argue that more emphasis should be given to HI development. Rather than decreasing the funding of AI, the analysis of progress in artificial and human intelligence indicates that it would be reasonable to see increased emphasis placed on using various AI techniques and technologies to improve HI on a large and sustainable scale. Well, most researchers might agree that AI techniques or the situation might be not mature enough to support such a large-scale development. But it would be dangerous if HI development is overlooked. Based on research and theory drawn from psychology as well as from epistemology, the framework is intended to provide a practical guide to the progressive development of inquiry and critical thinking skills in young children as children represent the future of our fragile planet. And we suggested a sustainable development approach for developing inquiry and critical thinking (See, Spector 2019 ). Such an approach could be realized through AI and infused into HI development. Besides, a project is underway in collaboration with NetDragon to develop gamified applications to develop the relevant skills and habits of mind. A game-based assessment methodology is being developed and tested at East China Normal University that is appropriate for middle school children. The intention of the effort is to refocus some of the attention on the development of HI in young children.

Availability of data and materials

Not applicable.

Abbreviations

Artificial Intelligence

Human Intelligence

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Acknowledgements

We wish to acknowledge the generous support of NetDragon and the Digital Research Centre at the University of North Texas.

Initial work is being funded through the NetDragon Digital Research Centre at the University of North Texas with Author as the Principal Investigator.

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Spector, J.M., Ma, S. Inquiry and critical thinking skills for the next generation: from artificial intelligence back to human intelligence. Smart Learn. Environ. 6 , 8 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-019-0088-z

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Inquiry-Based Learning

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Teaching & Learning Through Inquiry

What is inquiry-based learning.

Inquiry-based learning (IBL) is a teaching and learning approach that places emphasis on active student engagement, critical thinking, and problem-solving. In this approach, rather than simply memorizing information provided by the teacher, students are encouraged to ask questions, investigate problems, and develop their own understanding of concepts through exploration and discovery.

Key features of inquiry-based learning include:

Questioning: Students are encouraged to ask questions that guide their learning process. These questions may arise from their own curiosity or be prompted by the teacher to stimulate critical thinking.

Investigation: Students engage in hands-on activities, research, experiments, or discussions to explore answers to their questions and solve problems.

Critical Thinking: Inquiry-based learning promotes critical thinking skills by requiring students to analyze information, evaluate evidence, make connections, and draw conclusions based on their findings.

Active Participation: Students take an active role in their learning process, rather than being passive recipients of information. They are encouraged to collaborate with peers, share ideas, and construct knowledge collectively.

Authentic Learning Experiences: Inquiry-based learning often involves real-world contexts or scenarios, making the learning experiences more relevant and meaningful to students.

Importance of Inquiry-Based Learning:

Encourages Curiosity and Engagement: Inquiry-based learning taps into students' natural curiosity and encourages them to become active participants in the learning process. By exploring questions and problems that interest them, students are more motivated and engaged in their studies.

Develops Critical Thinking Skills: Through inquiry-based learning, students learn how to think critically, analyze information, and solve complex problems. These skills are essential for success in academic pursuits as well as in professional and everyday life.

Fosters Lifelong Learning: By nurturing curiosity, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills, inquiry-based learning helps students develop a mindset of lifelong learning. They become more self-directed learners who are capable of seeking out information, asking questions, and finding solutions independently.

Promotes Deeper Understanding: Inquiry-based learning encourages students to explore topics in depth, leading to a deeper understanding of concepts and principles. Instead of rote memorization, students develop a conceptual understanding that they can apply in various contexts.

Prepares Students for the Future: In a rapidly changing world, where information is readily available and technology is constantly evolving, inquiry-based learning equips students with the skills they need to adapt, innovate, and thrive in diverse environments.

Importance of Incorporating L earner A gency into I nquiry- B ased L earning:

Promotes Learner Agency: Inquiry-based learning empowers students with a sense of agency over their learning. By encouraging them to ask questions, explore topics of interest, and make decisions about their learning path, it puts students in control of their educational journey. This sense of ownership fosters motivation, autonomy, and a deeper commitment to learning outcomes.

Enhances Self-Efficacy: When students actively participate in inquiry-based learning experiences and see the impact of their efforts, they develop a sense of competence and self-efficacy. They realize that they have the ability to tackle challenges, find solutions, and achieve success through their own actions. This increased self-confidence translates into greater resilience and a willingness to take on new learning opportunities.

Cultivates Responsibility and Accountability: In inquiry-based learning environments, students are responsible for setting goals, managing their time, and evaluating their progress. They learn to take ownership of their learning process and accept accountability for their choices and actions. This sense of responsibility prepares them for future academic and professional endeavors where self-direction and accountability are valued qualities.

Encourages Personalization and Differentiation: Inquiry-based learning allows for personalized learning experiences tailored to individual student interests, abilities, and learning styles. Students have the flexibility to pursue topics that resonate with them, delve deeper into areas of curiosity, and explore diverse perspectives. This personalized approach accommodates the diverse needs and preferences of learners, promoting inclusivity and equity in education.

Fosters Reflection and Metacognition: Through inquiry-based learning, students engage in reflective practices that deepen their understanding of their own learning process. They learn to monitor their thinking, evaluate strategies, and make adjustments based on feedback and reflection. This metacognitive awareness enhances their ability to learn independently, identify areas for growth, and develop strategies for continuous improvement.

What Is Inquiry-Based Learning

Features of Inquiry

Making the Case for Inquiry

Inquiry is... posters.

Four Types of Student Inquiry

What Happens When We Put Kids in Control of Their Learning?

Stop! Before You Go Further, Listen to this Podcast by Kath Murdoch to Learn About the Power of Inquiry

The importance of differentiating instruction & assessment .

It is critical to incorporate differentiation and assessment strategies during collaborative planning and teaching for implicit and explicit opportunities for all students to develop inquiry skills both inside and outside the programme of inquiry. Learn more about Differentiating Instruction and Assessment.

Designing a Journey of Inquiry: Kath Murdoch

Model for designing a journey of inquiry.

A Sample Overview of an Inquiry Journey

What Makes a Good Inquiry Unit?

Strategies to Use During Inquiry

Kath Murdoch's Inquiry Cycle

Promoting The Yearn to Learn

Busting Some Myths About 'The Inquiry Cycle'

A blog post by kathy murdoch.

I once read an interview with a hero of my early teaching days – Donald Graves.  He was asked about the way people had misinterpreted his ‘process writing’ model and replied that sometimes he wished he’d never written it down! Years later I understand the frustration behind that sentiment.  It’s hard to do justice to the complexities and nuances of inquiry in writing.  So much gets lost. Something that is rich, layered and multidimensional can come across as flat, linear and recipe-like. Over the years,  I have published several books that share a ‘cycle of inquiry’ and the kinds of learning engagements that we might design within a cycle.   I have seen hundreds of interpretations of this idea in classrooms.  Many have been gratifying and exciting. Teachers who really ‘get’ the intention, understand the complexity and invite their students into the learning have blown me away with what they have done.   And I have also seen (and heard) many bewildering versions or iterations of the cycle that are such a long way off the original conceptualization and intent!  Ironically, I have seen slavish adherence to a cycle actually impede rather than enhance inquiry.

So Why Even ‘Have’ Such a Cycle? 

Articulating a model or framework for the process of inquiry is a helpful way to support and guide our practice. The intention of the ‘cycle’ is to guide the teacher’s (and learner’s) thinking beyond simply coming up with ‘activities’ and towards a more thoughtful process that assists students to move from the known to the new.     The need to ‘name’ some kind of process was first revealed to me as a young teacher by my fabulous mentors Marilyn Woolley and Keith Pigdon. They helped me move beyond thematic planning and into a more rigorous way of thinking about how to guide learning.  Once I understood constructivism -  it made sense to me to describe what was such a natural process of building understanding over time.  My job as a teacher was to help design experiences for learners that would support the brain’s best inclinations to wonder, look for patterns, seek new information, link to prior learning and transfer.  While it has changed over time, the cycle I now use owes much to Woolley and Pigdon’s visionary work.

Here are some of the more common misconceptions about ‘the cycle’ and my response to them.  I hope it is as useful to read as it has been to write!!

Misconception 1: Inquiry is all about ‘the cycle’. We DO the cycle….therefore, we DO inquiry.

Simply using an inquiry cycle does not make us inquiry teachers.  As I have written before, inquiry is a ‘way of being’ in the classroom.  Yes, there are planning frameworks that can support the ways in which we design learning experiences for and with students but this is only part of the inquiry story.  An inquiry teacher knows how to question students in ways that enhance and deepen thinking, how to offer choice and honour voice, how to seize an unexpected moment for investigation and how to embed learning in purposeful context   It’s a pedagogy – not just a planning framework.

Misconception 2:  The cycle is a recipe. We need to follow the stages in sequence for it to ‘work out’ in the end.

Nope. It’s a flexible framework. Not a recipe.  Essentially, inquiry cycles provide labels for a process that is common to many disciplines.  Most people agree that inquiry: involves time to establish your current thinking, your needs and questions, some ‘hunting and gathering’ of information/ideas/ data, some sorting organizing and meaning making and some kind of creation/application/transfer/use.  And most agree that this process is cyclical in nature. New discoveries lead to new questions and so on.  But this process is much neater on paper than it is in practice.  True inquiry is often messy and recursive. We gather and sort then realize we have new questions so we return to some more gathering.  In the cycle I use, I place great emphasis on the role of ‘tuning in’ to students’ thinking to establish pathways for investigation. While it often sits at the ‘start’ of the process – I return to ‘tuning in’ regularly.  These are phases more than they are stages, elements more than they are steps.  There is nothing contained, neat or particularly orderly about a lot of inquiry BUT having a relatively simple iteration of it in the form of this cycle can help us think more clearly and actually better manage the messiness without getting overwhelmed!

Misconception 3: All inquiries go through the same phases over a similar time frame.

Much as it would be convenient, no two inquiries are the same.  Although most journeys will contain elements of this cycle, starting points, emphases and time frames vary from context to context and depend on the group of students, their age level and what they bring to the journey in the first place.    I have seen some beautiful inquiry journeys travelled within an hour. I have seen some that last a year.  I have seen some that really don’t involve much ‘action’ but are highly worthwhile and engaging and others that are really all about the action.

Misconception 4: Using a ‘cycle’ as a guide, we can plan a complete unit of inquiry for students

I think this is the most troubling use of the cycle I see. The cycle should INFORM planning, guide it but it doesn’t mean we can create the whole thing before we start.   When I use a planner with the elements of the cycle in it – I see that planner as a guide throughout the process – not as a template to be filled in one sitting.  The cycle is emergent….how kids ‘sort out’ the ideas information depends on what they gather – and that is not something we can determine in detail.  The cycle unfolds.

Misconception 5: The cycle is for teachers.

Students benefit from having some ‘meta-language’ to attach to processes they use as inquirers.  Some kind of framework should be developed for and WITH students that helps everyone gain a shared language. Making this visible to students helps them think about how journeys of inquiry are both similar and different. It is really useful to display the cycle but only if it is referred to, analysed, played with and critiqued!

Misconception 6: The cycle only applies to ‘units of inquiry’ in disciplines like science and social studies.

I see many examples of this cycle in action in a range of disciplines and contexts.  Some ‘tweaking’ is needed at times to best fit the nature of the discipline but it is interesting to explore this kind of transfer.  Check out for example – the great work done on http://www.iphys-ed.com about inquiry-based PE or Bruce Ferrington’s application of the cycle to math inquiry - http://authenticinquirymaths.blogspot.co.at/

Misconception 7: It’s my way or the highway or ‘there is only one cycle’….

There are many versions of a ‘cycle of inquiry’. The fact that there ARE many versions is healthy and affirming. I love the different emphases, language and uses of these cycles and think that, together, they help offer us lots to consider as we continue to clarify this intriguing process in our own minds.  Explore various cycles. Look for patterns…where do they all agree? Find one that works for you and your students. Create your own – but be consistent. Shared language across a school has great benefits.

A cycle of inquiry helps us plan and teach with intention.   When it is understood, it pushes us beyond simply coming up with ‘activities’ and challenges us to think about how skills and concepts can be developed and deepened over time.   It gives us some shared ‘meta’ language to use with students and colleagues

How do YOU use a cycle of inquiry to inform your work as an inquiry teacher?

…Just wondering….

Reinvent Inquiry Podcast

[ kath murdoch ].

In this episode of "Reinvent Inquiry," we explore inquiry-based learning with expert Kath Murdoch who has 30 yrs of experience & 15 books, including best-seller "The Power of Inquiry." We delve into the subject & explore how digital tools can enhance the learning cycle. Learn the secrets to successful inquiry & how it can revolutionize teaching & learning. A must-listen for teachers, students, & education enthusiasts to understand the power of inquiry in shaping the future of education. Join us to reinvent inquiry for the digital age.

Permission to Inquire: Taking Ownership of Your Curriculum

[kath murdoch ].

This is episode one from Toddle's " School Leadership Project "

Kath Murdoch is an educator who is passionate about inquiry-based learning and its implementation in the classroom. She believes that inquiry-based teaching and learning is not just a theoretical concept but requires a deep understanding of what it looks, sounds, and feels like in practice. Kath's newest book focuses on personalized inquiry, which expands the scope of inquiry-based learning to include individual and small group exploration of personal interests and passions. She emphasizes that personalized inquiry can be integrated within the curriculum, leveraging connections to key skills and concepts. Kath advocates for a guided approach to inquiry, where teachers play a crucial role in supporting and scaffolding students' learning journeys. She believes that a strong understanding of the curriculum empowers teachers to make meaningful connections and create engaging learning experiences. In order to foster a culture of inquiry, Kath encourages leaders to provide teachers with time, autonomy, and opportunities for collaboration and sharing. Additionally, she acknowledges the challenge of sustaining an inquiry-based culture when key staff members transition, emphasizing the importance of preserving the culture and supporting ongoing professional learning.

** Related resources connected to the podcast

Kath's book she mentioned in the podcast

Getting Personal with Inquiry Learning: Guiding Learners' Explorations of Personal Passions, Interests and Questions 

The personalized inquiry model expands on the traditional inquiry cycle, allowing individuals or small groups to pursue their own interests.

Personalized inquiry can be integrated within the curriculum by mapping it to relevant skills, concepts, and dispositions.

Kath Murdoch views inquiry as guided rather than a strict dichotomy between guided and open inquiry.

Deep knowledge of the curriculum empowers teachers to make connections between personal inquiries and curriculum outcomes.

Leaders can empower teachers by providing them with time, autonomy, and opportunities for collaboration and sharing.

Challenges in implementing inquiry-driven pedagogy include transiency, where staff members move on, and sustaining a culture of inquiry when key individuals leave.

Key ideas from the conversation with Kath Murdoch:

Professional inquiries can be conducted without a formal end exhibition or showcase. The impact of the inquiry is experienced throughout the process, as teachers choose areas they want to improve in their students' learning and work on their inquiries with the students.

The impact of professional inquiries is enhanced through collaboration and sharing among teachers. Regular staff meetings dedicated to sharing progress, challenges, and learning from each other contribute to the professional growth of teachers.

The alignment of personal inquiries with a school's strategic plan or individual performance goals can provide a framework for teachers' inquiries, but it's important to maintain teachers' genuine voice and autonomy in the process.

Professional inquiries should be seen as a complementary form of professional development alongside other forms such as collective shared inquiries and workshop days.

The concept of time and autonomy is crucial in supporting personal inquiries. Teachers should be provided with dedicated time and support to pursue their inquiries and develop their professional growth.

Resources for inquiry-based pedagogy can vary, but some essential ones include loose parts and natural materials for hands-on exploration, access to digital technologies for information gathering, and a collection of quality professional literature to support teachers' learning. Books and resources that offer depth and expertise are particularly valuable.

Leaders should be aware of the available resources, keep up with current literature, and share relevant books or resources with the staff to support their professional growth and practice. The right book at the right time can be transformative for a teacher's practice.

Learn more about this episode from Toddle's " School Leadership Project "

The Power of Ummm...

• What if classrooms were laboratories where wonder thrives?
• What if it was more exciting in a classroom to not know something than it was to know something?
• What if classrooms were places where children know their questions would be heard?"

Personal Inquiry

Supporting Learners to Find and Follow their Passions

Sowing the seeds for a great year of inquiry: 10 tips for term 1.

The school year has just begun here in Australia. It’s a time of great anticipation, resolution and excitement – I love the sense of possibility that accompanies this time. For many of us – having had a break – it is also a time of adjustment. In a sense, we return to our ‘teacher selves’ and with that, is an opportunity to think about that identity: how DO we see ourselves as teachers and how does this impact on the way we teach? I remember hearing Ken Robinson (in a lesser- known talk) once describe teachers as gardeners. This is always a metaphor that has appealed to me. I like the nurturing connotation, the link to nature, the need to tend and care, the combination of planned and unexpected and, of course, the symbol of growth.

Over the last few days, I have been working with teachers in various schools, as they prepare to meet their students and begin a new year. The gardening metaphor has come to mind many times. When it comes to inquiry – there is so much we can do (and indeed should do) to ‘prepare the soil’ and plant the seeds for a healthy, rich, vibrant year of investigation. When we meet our students at the beginning of the year, we are in a unique position to establish the culture that will best nurture our inquiry-learning garden.   So I have been reflecting on some of the key things to attend to in order to prepare the way for inquiry. Here are 10 tips for term 1...

Make relationship building your priority. Inquiry works best in classrooms where students feel safe to take risks, share thinking, wonder aloud and challenge themselves. Inquiry teachers also need to KNOW their students – as people and as learners, in order to guide them most effectively. Respectful, warm and connected relationships are the key to a strong inquiry classroom. Collaborative games and simply having some fun together go a long way to creating the kind of atmosphere in which intellectual risk taking can thrive!

How will you foster strong relationships in your classroom from day one?

Find out what your students are interested in, passionate about and ‘good at’. Whether they are 5 years old or in the final year of school – your students come to you with experience, expertise, passions and wonderings. An inquiry classroom makes the most of the individual strengths and interests each student brings. Begin a wonderwall, inquiry diary, wonder journal......Ask students to write you a letter/blog post or tweet about why you are so lucky to have them in your class this year!

How will you find out about your students’ interests?

Involve students in setting up the physical learning space. Ask them: ‘how can we use this space so we can do our best learning? This will tell you a lot about the students’ ideas about learning itself and may prompt some useful inquiry into the relationships between the environment and how we learn.

How will you ensure the classroom is ‘owned’ by the students? How will you involve them in creating the learning space?

Work on nurturing a culture of curiosity. Bring in fascinating objects, start a ‘cabinet of curiosity’, institute a quirky ‘question of the day’, share some awe-inspiring YouTube clips. Commit to sharing your own ‘awe and wonderment’ about the world. Be a model of curiosity.

How will you ensure that curiosity thrives in your classroom?

Consider ways in which you can re-structure some of your ‘beginning of the year’ events or activities so they are inquiries in themselves. For example – instead of planning all the activities that help young children get to know their school…make it an inquiry. “How can we learn about our school?”. Invite children to suggest WHAT they want to know about the school –and how they could find out! The same can be done with getting to know each other. Avoid the usual gimmicky activities and set this as an inquiry challenge: How could we find out more about each other? What do we want to know? How could we gather this information? How could we share it? Why is it important? Have students design their own ‘getting to know your tasks’. The class agreement can also be created through a process of inquiry.

How can you make some of your beginning of the year ‘activities’ more inquiry-based?

Share learning intentions as questions. As I have written about previously on this blog, when we frame learning intentions as questions we open up more scope for investigation and discovery. Try this technique early in the year. Creating an inquiry culture is all about using, valuing and reflecting on questions.

How will you use questions to drive learning?

Start speaking ‘learnish’ . This is one of my favourite terms used by Guy Claxton. The beginning of the year is the perfect time to find out what your students think about learning and how they see themselves as learners. Ask them to share their thinking about learning with you. Commit to being more conscious of your own language. Grow a classroom discourse that is learning-centred.

How will you help students learn and use the language of learning?

Yield to an unexpected moment.  When I interviewed children at the end of 2014 about their learning as inquirers, many of them remembered the inquiries that had emerged unexpectedly more than they remembered the inquiries that were more planned ahead!  Teachers, too, regularly tell me that some of their strongest, most authentic teaching happens in response to an unexpected moment, problem, event or challenge. School programming is tighter than it has ever been. I am not suggesting we abandon plans and frameworks – far from it -  BUT I am suggesting we make a conscious decision to remain open to the unexpected moments that await us in 2015. Ironically, the more you know your curriculum and the clearer you are about where you are headed….the more comfortable you are about taking the road less travelled!

How will you make room for the unexpected?

Get connected!!!  Inquiry teachers and learners are connected – to each other, to the community and to the world beyond their local community. When we set up mechanisms through which we can connect students to the world, we offer SO much more scope for research, collaborative investigations, access to expertise, authentic learning and real communication skills. Class twitter accounts, blogs and connecting with other schools via Skype or FaceTime are highly engaging and allow the classroom to no longer be defined by four walls. If you, as a teacher, have not yet, for example, subscribed to a blog, opened a twitter account, explored some educational apps…it’s time!

How will you get connected?

Commit to being an inquirer.  Be the inquirer you want to see. Make sure YOU are experiencing some kind of inquiry this year – it may be professional or personal. Share your learning experiences with your students. Use language that shows them you are a learner too – you wonder, speculate, investigate, re-think, reflect and remain ardently curious. For many of us, our identity as a teacher is tightly bound to control and authority. Becoming an inquiry teacher – and nurturing inquiry learners – challenges us to re-think our ways of seeing and being. Your own inquiry disposition can be a powerful ‘fertilizer’ as you sow the seeds for a wonder-full year of learning with your students.

How will you prepare the way for inquiry to grow in your classroom this year?  Just wondering....

How will you nurture your own inquiring mind?

The Future of Teaching & Learning

[kath murdoch & guy claxton].

• Inquiry is a stance to be curious, wonder, question, sceptical.
• Inquiry is a way of being.
• Inquiry is NOT a subject.
• Inquiry is NOT something you do on Thursday afternoon.
• Inquiry is NOT inquiry time.

Benefits of Inquiry-Based Learning 

• Inquiry learning is all about knowing what to do when we don't know.
• How can an inquiry-based learning environment be designed?
• How can schools encourage inquiry-based learning?
• What are the benefits of inquiry-based learning?

Kath Murdoch's Website/Blog: Information about Inquiry

Types of Inquiry: Encouraging Student Agency

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• Teaching Tips

How to Include Inquiry-Based Learning in Your Classroom

Inquiry-based learning helps deepen students' curiosity and critical thinking by extending education outside the classroom

Danielle Leboff

Stemming from the Discovery Learning movement of the 1960s, the Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) Model is a pedagogy that centers on the belief that people learn best through social experiences and by investigating problems and situations themselves. 

Educators using the inquiry-based model encourage students to conduct experiments and investigations to expand their knowledge base. In turn, learners develop critical thinking, collaboration, communication and problem-solving skills that will serve them well, not just in higher education, but in the workplace as well. 

Table of Contents

What inquiry-based learning means, why inquiry-based learning is important in higher education, the five steps of inquiry-based learning in higher education, the four forms of inquiry in higher education, how inquiry-based learning helps with blended and online learning in higher education.

Underlying inquiry-based learning is four fundamental principles:

• Students are central to the learning process. Educator involvement, technology and other learning resources are specifically geared around student participation and engagement.
• Every learning activity centers on answering students’ questions and strengthening their information-processing abilities.
• In addition to facilitating the learning process, educators should aim to learn about their students personally and enable them to apply inquiry-based learning as learning unfolds.
• Educators should not overemphasize the content of the particular subject or field of study. Instead, they should focus on evaluating student progress in developing information-processing abilities and conceptual comprehension throughout the learning process. 

Inquiry-based learning is designed to engage and harness a student’s intellectual curiosity. It empowers them to lead the course of their own studies. This way, it expands and deepens their understanding and competency, not just with respect to a specific area of study, but the process of learning itself. Through inquiry-based learning, students develop their abilities to question, research and communicate and collaborate both in and out of the classroom. 

Inquiry-based instruction is multidisciplinary by nature. When students engage in the process of inquiry, they develop skills that span academia and the workplace. These include collaboration, collecting and analyzing data, developing and organizing representations of that data in order to share the results with others. The greatest value of these activities is helping students understand the practical value of what they are learning. 

Although this approach crosses disciplinary boundaries, it generally follows the same set of steps to encourage deeper learning and the development of critical thinking skills.

1. Pose a question

The first phase of IBL may well be the most important. It encourages student engagement by asking learners to formulate the questions they will be exploring and to assess their initial understanding of those questions. This is also the only phase with direct instruction from the educator. This allows them to orient themselves to the topic and to assess their prior knowledge as well as current levels of understanding. From these questions and insights, students can then develop the hypotheses they will investigate. 

2. Execute research

In the second phase of IBL, students begin to conduct research and collect data from a variety of reliable and authoritative sources. They also design experiments to test their hypotheses. As students acquire more information and insights, the goal is to reevaluate their initial understandings and determine whether they need to be altered or amended. This prepares students for the next step which involves fully analyzing all the information they’ve collected. 

3. Interpret the data

After all the research is completed, including data collection and hypothesis testing, it’s time for the next step. Here, students critically analyze and interpret all the information they’ve collected as a form of experiential learning. The goal here is to use their new understanding of the topic to refine their answers to the questions they initially formulated. 

This third phase is also when students begin identifying trends and patterns in the data noting similarities and differences between them. By the end of this phase, students will have synthesized their work to determine and better understand their own perspectives among the broader scope of possible explanations, opinions and theories. 

4. Share results

Once students have drawn conclusions from their explorations, it’s time to organize their findings and conceptual understandings in writing or other formats to present them to others. This is the stage where they solicit feedback from their instructor and classmates on their determinations and the work that led them there. 

5. Evaluate student learning

This final phase of IBL occurs after the study and research of the initial questions have been completed and shared. In this phase, it is not their new knowledge of a given topic itself students examine. Instead, students evaluate the effectiveness of their process in achieving their learning objectives. Beyond a greater understanding of the material, one of the key benefits of inquiry-based learning is that it allows students to expand their critical thinking, data analysis and communication skills. 

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In an inquiry-based learning environment, students have the opportunity to fully investigate lines of inquiry, not only to learn from the results but to learn the very process of inquiry itself. There are multiple approaches to do so, each with its own specific style and benefits. 

1. Confirmation inquiry

In confirmation inquiry, teachers give students a question and a procedure for discovering the same known answer. In other words, students know ahead of time the result their investigations should reach. The aim of this exercise is not to discover the answer to a question so much as it is to hone a student’s investigative skills. Confirmation inquiry helps teach students to collect and record data and follow procedures. 

2. Structured inquiry

In a structured inquiry exercise, educators give students a question with an unknown answer to investigate along with a set of procedures to follow. Structured inquiry helps teach students to collect, record, analyze and evaluate data by following a specific process to formulate explanations by engaging them in educational research. 

3. Guided inquiry

In a guided inquiry activity, teachers give students a question with an unknown answer but without a set of procedures to follow. The goal here is to have students explore a question individually or in small groups and design a set of procedures to answer it. Guided inquiry helps students learn the same skills as confirmation and structured inquiry as well as as a set of steps to guide the process. 

4. Open inquiry

Also known as true inquiry, open inquiry involves students designing their own points of inquiry and procedures for investigation. Over the course of their inquiry, students must explore and answer the questions they’ve devised. Open inquiry helps students learn the same skills as the other three forms of inquiry as well as devise questions and communicate results. 

The self-directed nature of the inquiry-based learning model melds well with blended and online learning environments. The primary role of an instructor using IBL is to serve as a guide rather than a direct provider of learning and information. While touchpoints are critical to providing mentorship and guidance, the primary goal is for students to explore, test and analyze what they have uncovered.  The remote nature of online and blended learning can actually help empower students to direct their own learning and rely on the instructor less for their own educational progress and development. 

4 ways educators can use inquiry-based learning in their higher ed classrooms

• Design thinking: Design thinking is a collaborative, experimentation- and investigation-based process of learning and a great way to develop collaboration, problem-solving and inquiry skills. Whether you implement the design thinking process through an individual project or group activity, you can use it to help students learn to better identify challenges, gather information, design possible solutions, test them and refine their ideas. 
• Problem-based learning: This learning and teaching method provides students with complex real-world problems and guides them through the process of discovering the answer to their own satisfaction. The key here is to give students the question(s) before they begin learning anything about the topic or method of deriving a potential solution. This propels students to develop inquiry-related skills such as formulating questions, identifying the information they’ll need and locating, interpreting and using that information to figure out the answer. Students walk away from these experiences better equipped to engage their own thinking to tackle future real-world problems. 
• Scenario-based or case-based learning: Give students real-life scenarios to analyze as a group. What’s important to keep in mind is that the case or scenario should have no singular right answer or solution. The instructor’s primary role is to serve as a facilitator. The challenge for participants is to combine their knowledge and skills to analyze and address the case collectively and come up with their own mutually satisfactory solution. 
• Meta-questions: These larger questions—or ‘questions about questions’—often take more time and multiple smaller experiments or investigations to answer. This approach allows students to explore and engage in multiple learning experiences in an effort to reach a greater understanding of a more complex topic. The process often spans multiple sessions in which students discuss their progress and participate in new activities that ultimately help them contribute to the larger understanding of the question at hand, as well as their own questions.

Inquiry-based learning is more than asking a student what they want to know. It’s about generating a genuine curiosity and interest in learning. Activating a student’s curiosity is a far more important and complex goal than information delivery. Despite its complexity, inquiry-based learning can be a form of professional development for educators, by encouraging them to be choosy with their formal lecturing and instruction. By releasing some authority to students, members of the class are more likely to feel a sense of ownership over their own learning.

Recommended Readings

The Ultimate Guide to Metacognition for Post-Secondary Courses

25 Effective Instructional Strategies For Educators

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What Is “Inquiry-Based Learning”?: Types, Benefits, Examples

What Is Inquiry-Based Learning?

The 4 types of inquiry-based learning, 7 benefits of inquiry-based learning, 5 inquiry-based learning examples, 5 strategies and tips for implementing inquiry-based learning, 4 models to use in the classroom, let’s wrap.

Are you looking for a teaching strategy that will engage your students in the learning process? Do you want them to be able to ask questions and investigate real-world problems? If so, you should consider using inquiry-based learning in your classroom.

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Inquiry-based learning is a teaching method that encourages students to ask questions and investigate real-world problems. This type of learning has many benefits and can be used in various subject areas.

This blog will discuss the benefits of inquiry-based learning and provide some strategies, tips, and models that you can use in your classroom. But first, let’s take a closer look at what inquiry-based learning is.

• What is inquiry-based learning
• Types of inquiry-based learning
• Benefits of inquiry-based learning
• Inquiry-based learning examples
• Strategies for implementing inquiry-based learning in the classroom
• Four models to use in the classroom

Inquiry-based learning is a student-centered teaching method that encourages students to ask questions and investigate real-world problems. In this type of learning environment, students are actively engaged in the learning process and are given the opportunity to explore their natural curiosities.

This type of learning is often hands-on and allows students to connect what they learn in the classroom and the real world. Inquiry-based learning has been shown to improve critical thinking skills, problem-solving skills, and creativity.

There are four types of inquiry-based learning:

1. The Structured Inquiry Approach

The structured inquiry approach is a sequential process that helps students learn how to ask questions and investigate real-world problems. This type of inquiry-based learning is often used in science classes, where students are given a problem to investigate and are taught how to use the scientific process to find a solution.

2. The Open-Ended Inquiry Approach

The open-ended inquiry approach is a more free-form approach to inquiry-based learning. In this type of learning environment, students are given the freedom to explore their interests and ask questions about the topic they are studying. This type of inquiry-based learning is often used in humanities classes, where students are asked to explore a topic in-depth and debate different viewpoints.

3. The Problem-Based Inquiry Approach

A problem-based inquiry approach is a problem-solving approach to inquiry-based learning. In this type of approach, students are given a real-world problem to solve. This type of inquiry-based learning is often used in mathematics and engineering classes, where students are asked to apply what they have learned to solve a real-world problem.

4. The Guided Inquiry Approach

The guided inquiry approach is a teacher-led approach to inquiry-based learning. In this type of approach, the teacher guides the students through the inquiry process and helps them to ask questions and find solutions to real-world problems. This type of inquiry-based learning is often used in elementary and middle school classrooms.

Now that we have a better understanding of the different types of inquiry-based learning, let’s take a look at the benefits.

With so many benefits, it is no wonder that inquiry-based learning has become a popular teaching method . Some of the benefits of inquiry-based learning include:

1. Encourages critical thinking

Inquiry-based learning encourages students to think critically about the information they are presented with. They are asked to question the information and develop their own solutions. This type of learning helps students develop problem-solving skills and critical-thinking skills.

2. Improves problem-solving skills

Inquiry-based learning helps students develop problem-solving skills. When they are given the opportunity to explore real-world problems, they are forced to think outside the box and come up with their own solutions. This is an important skill that will help them in their future careers.

3. Encourages creativity

This concept of learning encourages creativity. When students are given the opportunity to explore a problem independently, they often come up with creative solutions. This is due to the fact that any particular way of thinking does not restrict them.

4. Improves communication skills

It also helps students improve their communication skills. When working on a problem, they often have to explain their thoughts and ideas to others. This helps them learn how to communicate effectively with others.

5. Connects learning to the real world

Inquiry-based learning helps connect learning to the real world. When students are allowed to explore problems that exist in the real world, they can see how what they are learning in the classroom is relevant. This also helps them develop a better understanding of the material.

6. Helps students understand complex topics

Inquiry-based learning can also help students understand complex topics. When they are allowed to explore these topics in a hands-on environment, they can learn about them more meaningfully.

7. Encourages engaged learning

Finally, this type of learning encourages engaged learning. When students are actively involved in the learning process, they are more likely to retain the information. This is due to the fact that they are invested in what they are doing.

Now that we have looked at the benefits of inquiry-based learning, let’s take a look at some examples.

1. Science Experiments

One way to incorporate inquiry-based learning into your classroom is to allow students to conduct experiments. This will encourage them to ask questions and think critically about the results.

2. Field Trips

Another way to encourage inquiry-based learning is to take students on field trips. This will allow them to explore real-world problems and see how what they are learning in the classroom is relevant.

3. Classroom Debates

Classroom debates are another great way to encourage this type of learning. When students debate a topic, they are forced to think critically about both sides of the argument.

4. Projects

Projects are another great way to encourage inquiry-based learning. When students are given the opportunity to work on a project that is related to the topic they are studying, they will be more likely to learn and remember the information.

5. Group Work

When students work in groups, they are able to share their ideas and thoughts with others. This helps them to understand the material better.

Now that we have looked at the benefits of inquiry-based learning and some examples, let’s look at some inquiry-based strategies and tips that you can use in your classroom.

1. Start with a Question

The best way to start an inquiry-based lesson is by asking a question. This will get students thinking about the topic and will encourage them to ask their own questions.

2. Allow for Exploration

Once you have asked a question, allow students to explore the topic on their own. This will help them to understand the material better.

3. Encourage Discussion

Encourage students to discuss their ideas with each other. This will help them to develop a better understanding of the material.

4. Provide Resources

Be sure to provide students with resources that they can use to explore the topic. This will help them develop a better understanding. Teachers can also give access to online learning platforms like SplashLearn , which further help enhance the knowledge of the concepts.

5. Summarize What Was Learned

At the end of the lesson, be sure to summarize what was learned. This will help students to remember the information.

You can use different models to encourage inquiry-based learning in your classroom. The important thing is that you allow students to be actively involved in the learning process. Let’s have a look at a few models that you can use.

Now that we have looked at the benefits of inquiry-based learning and some strategies for implementing it in your classroom , let’s take a look at four models you can use.

1. The Question Model

The question model is one of the most basic models for inquiry-based learning. It involves asking students questions about the topic you are teaching. This will encourage them to think critically about the material.

2. The Problem-Based Learning Model

The problem-based learning model is another excellent option for inquiry-based learning. This model involves giving students a problem to solve. They will need to think critically about the problem and find a solution.

3. The Project-Based Learning Model

Project-based learning is a great way for students to explore a topic in depth. This model involves giving students a project to work on that is related to the topic you are teaching.

4. The Inquiry Cycle Model

With the inquiry cycle model, students are given the opportunity to ask questions, investigate a topic, and then share their findings. This model allows students to explore a topic in-depth and share their discoveries with others.

Inquiry-based learning is a teaching method that encourages students to ask questions and explore their answers. This type of learning has many benefits, both for students and teachers. In this article, we’ve looked at some of the critical benefits of inquiry-based learning as well as strategies you can use to get started in your own classroom. We hope you’re inspired to give it a try!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is the importance of inquiry-based learning.

Inquiry-based learning is important because it allows students to explore and ask questions about the world around them. This type of learning helps students develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

What is the definition of inquiry-based learning?

Inquiry-based learning is a type of active learning that encourages students to ask questions, conduct research, and explore new ideas. This approach to learning helps students develop critical thinking, problem-solving, and research skills.

What are the roles of students in inquiry-based learning?

In inquiry-based learning, students take on the role of researcher. They are encouraged to ask questions and explore new ideas. Students also have the opportunity to share their findings with their classmates and learn from each other.

How do you plan an inquiry-based lesson?

Inquiry-based lessons are typically designed around a central question or problem. From there, teachers can provide resources and scaffolding to help students investigate the topic. It is important to leave room for student exploration and allow them to ask their own questions.

What are the five guiding questions of inquiry?

The 5 guiding questions of inquiry are:

Do inquiry-based and project-based learning have to be the same thing?

No, inquiry-based and project-based learning are two different approaches. Inquiry-based learning is focused on student-driven research and exploration. Project-based learning is focused on students working together to complete a real-world project. However, both approaches can include elements of inquiry and problem-solving.

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• Published: 30 June 2020

Effects of using inquiry-based learning on EFL students’ critical thinking skills

• Bantalem Derseh Wale 1 &
• Kassie Shifere Bishaw 2  

Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education volume  5 , Article number:  9 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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Metrics details

The aim of this study was to examine the effects of using inquiry-based learning on students’ critical thinking skills. A quasi-experimental design which employed time series design with single group participants was used. A total of 20 EFL undergraduate students who took advanced writing skills course were selected using comprehensive sampling method. Tests, focus group discussion, and student-reflective journal were used to gather data on the students’ critical thinking skills. The participants were given a series of three argumentative essay writing pretests both before and after the intervention, inquiry-based argumentative essay writing instruction. While the quantitative data were analyzed using One-Way Repeated Measures ANOVA, the qualitative data were analyzed through narration. The findings of the study revealed that using inquiry-based argumentative writing instruction enhances students’ critical thinking skills. Therefore, inquiry-based instruction is suggested as a means to improve students’ critical thinking skills because the method enhances students' interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and self-regulation skills which are the core critical thinking skills.

Introduction

Critical thinking is the ability to ask and/or answer insightful questions in a most productive way in order to reach on a comprehensive understanding (Hilsdon, 2010 ). It consists interpretation, analysis, evaluation, synthesize explanation, inference, and self-regulation. Empowering critical thinking skills among students in higher education especially in academic writing through the integration of critical thinking into the teaching learning process is essential in order to develop students’ problem solving, decision making and communication skills (Abdullah, 2014 ; Adege, 2016 ; McLean, 2005 ). Inquiry-based learning develops students’ critical thinking skills because it helps students to develop interpreting, analyzing, evaluating, inferring, explaining, and self-regulation skills which are the core critical thinking skills (Facione, 2011 ; Facione & Facione, 1994 ; Hilsdon, 2010 ).

The level of thinking depends on the level of questioning as long as the questioning leads to new perspectives (Buranapatana, 2006 ). When students learn to ask their own thought-provoking questions in and outside the classroom, and provide explanatory answers, they are well on the way to self-regulation of their learning. In inquiry-based writing instruction, students engaged in writing lessons and tasks that enhance their ability to apply these critical thinking skills because the method emphasize to produce texts through inquisition and investigation. In writing, when students’ written papers realize these skills, the students considered that their critical thinking skills are developed.

Inquiry-based learning is the act of gaining knowledge and skills through asking for information (Lee, 2014 ). It is a discovery method of learning that involves students in making observations; posing questions; examining sources; gathering, analyzing, interpreting, and synthesizing data; proposing answers, explanations and predictions; communicating findings through discussion and reflection; applying findings to the real situation, and following up new questions that may arise in the process. Inquiry-based learning emphasizes students’ abilities to critically view, question, and explore various perspectives and concepts of the real world. It takes place when the teacher facilitates and scaffolds learning than gives facts and knowledge so that students engage in investigating, questioning, and explaining their world in a student-centered learning environment.

Although inquiry-based learning is intended for science as it is classified as scientific approach, it can be implemented in language field. Rejeki ( 2017 ) mentioned that inquiry-based language learning is useful in promoting lifelong education that enables EFL learners to continue the quest for knowledge throughout life. Similarly, Lee ( 2014 ) stated that inquiry-based learning is an analogy for communicative approach. The principles of inquiry-based learning are compatible with Communicative Language Teaching because communicative approach focuses on communicative proficiency rather than mere mastery of structure to develop learners’ communicative competence as to inquiry-based learning. Inquiry-based learning is, therefore, a form of Communicative Language Teaching which serves to bring down the general principles of communicative approach, and implement in language classrooms in an inquisitive and discovery manner (Lee, 2014 ; Qing & Jin, 2007 ; Richards & Rodgers, 2001 ). While communicative approach is an umbrella of various active language learning methods, inquiry-based learning is one of the active learning methods that drive learning through inquisition and investigation. It mainly focuses on discovery and learner cognitive development to be achieved using thoughtful questions.

In inquiry-based writing instruction, students engaged in pre-writing tasks through generating ideas, narrowing and clarifying topics; exploring information on their writing topics from various sources; explaining their discoveries gained from the exploration, and elaborating their thinking through transforming their understanding into the real world situation. When students come up through this distinct process in manipulating such tasks, their critical thinking skills can be enhanced because this process develops students’ ability to analyze, synthesis, and evaluate concepts.

This study also revealed that students’ critical thinking skills has been enhanced through inquiry-based writing instruction because the method focuses on the process of knowledge discovery that involves students in seeking, collecting, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information; creating ideas, and solving problems through communication, collaboration, deep thinking, and learner autonomy. The study can contribute to the field of foreign language learning by possibly leading English language teachers and learners into a more effective language learning method. The study has applicable significances to EFL teachers to understand the nature and application of inquiry-based learning.

Literature review

Developing students’ critical thinking skills through inquiry-based writing instruction.

Inquiry-based learning develops students’ critical thinking skills because the method improves the students’ mental activities such as interpretation, analysis, evaluation, explanation, inference, and self-regulation. Previous studies have shown that students’ critical thinking abilities are significantly higher when students are taught through inquiry-based learning comparing with traditional teaching methods. Having a free medium of student learning class where students will share good experiences through an inquiry process that is based on curiosity is a preferred learning method to the act of teaching that characterized with teaching by forced (Ahmad, Sitti, Abdul, Mohammad, & Sanitah, 2014 ; Iakovos, 2011 ).

By using inquiry-based learning in writing lessons, students can develop critical thinking skills, and learn how to generate and organize ideas through investigation or/and discussion to find out alternative ideas, and produce sound written papers. Accordingly, students who used inquiry-based learning techniques in their language learning are better achievers because they have an active role in choosing the writing topics, and on developing the outcomes of their own investigations. Inquiry-based learning has impacts in EFL classes to help students improve the target language, and develop other abilities needed to understand this constantly changing world. When students participate in real life situations, they can develop effective research skills, adapt and respond better to change, and they are also prepared to the development of critical thinking skills (Escalante, 2013 ; Ismail, 2006 ; Lessner & Craig, 2010 ).

Similar studies conducted by Ash and Kluger-Bell ( 2012 ); Byker, Harden, Heafner, and Holzberg ( 2017 ); Ahmad et al. ( 2014 ) discovered that learners preferred and performed much better with confirmation level of inquiry compared to guided, structured and open inquiry because teachers provide every needed conditions and allow the student the freedom to learn independently in the confirmation level. In the same vein, Ghaemi and Mirsaeed ( 2017 ) investigated the impacts of inquiry-based learning approach on critical thinking skill of EFL students, and revealed that doing inquiry-based activities in EFL classroom increased the critical thinking ability of the students.

Finally, Naryanti ( 2017 ) who conducted an action research to explore the extent to which inquiry-based learning method can improve grade eight students’ ability in writing a descriptive text find out that inquiry-based learning method is able to improve the students’ descriptive writing skills. The students concerned actively in the learning process, especially in conveying their opinions, asking and responding questions, and enthusiasm in producing written texts.

In sum, the aforementioned studies indicated that using inquiry-based learning in ESL/EFL writing classroom improves students’ critical thinking skills, and help them to become lifelong mind seekers. However, most of the aforementioned studies were conducted on pretest-posttest two groups design unlike the present study which followed single group pretest-posttest design employing time serious design. On the other hand, the finding of these study show the effects of using inquiry-based learning excluding the local context, where the present study was conducted. However, in the study area, inquiry-based learning seems to have been a missing feature of English as a foreign language leaning in general and writing skills in particular. Thus, examining the effects of using inquiry-based learning on EFL students’ critical thinking skills in the local context was relevant to fill the research gap.

Why inquiry-based learning for EFL students’ critical thinking skills?

Critical thinking plays a significant role for higher education ESL/EFL learners’ in order to produce sound written texts including argumentative essays (Klimova, 2013 ; Ghaemi & Mirsaeed, 2017 ). However, various studies conducted on students’ critical thinking skills and writing performance revealed that students are commonly challenged to support their arguments through referring to and synthesizing academic sources due to poor reasoning and unsupported claims. Especially, synthesizing sources is a complex task to second and foreign language learners to comprehend, paraphrase, and summarize written texts (Alagozlu, 2007 ; Goodwin, 2014 ). Evaluating and synthesizing sources into their own writing are the elements of critical thinking that students find challenging to express their own academic thoughts (Ahmad et al., 2014 ; Melles, 2009 ; Wette, 2010 ).

Fostering critical thinking skills is a challenging task nowadays since learners are exposed to an enormous information influx, such as the Internet (Klimova, 2013 ). They are offered pre-chewed chunks of ideas and opinions and often, they are not made to think about them. However, a critical thinker should be alerted and in his/ her inquisitive nature inquire, judge and evaluate all such sources critically. Hence, using inquiry-based learning in writing classes is helpful to foster students’ critical thinking skills.

Paul and Elder ( 2007 ) states that the conventional way of teaching, the product approach, is criticized in its inadequacy to prepare university graduates to deal with existing complex situations, because students are assumed to develop critical thinking skills depending on books, lecture notes, and handouts. It also led students learn with lack of interest on topics, receive rather than to think critically and search for knowledge. The students were not mostly motivated to observe their environment critically, inquire things, investigate problems, and create new knowledge (Ferris & Hedgcock, 2013 ; Graham, MacArthur, & Fitzgerald, 2013 ; Yen, 2014 ). However, in learning situations like inquiry-based learning where critical thinking is emphasized; students aim to understand ideas with range of explorations and follow new leads; learn with curiosity or interest of topics, and reach on implications.

Local researchers like Daniel ( 2004 ); Dawit and Yalew ( 2008 ) find out that conventional teaching methods are still in use though teachers are expected to use active learning methods. The lecture method, which is considered as the conventional method of teaching, is used in colleges that teachers usually focus on giving lectures, and students depend primarily on lecture where discovery is not that much encouraged. The researcher’s language teaching experience also shows that students were not that much learning to improve their critical thinking skills in writing classes. In other terms, the students’ papers were not adequately developed due to lack of interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and self-regulation. However, there are no local studies conducted to investigate the effects of using inquiry-based writing instruction in EFL context. Therefore, the present study examines the effects of using inquiry-based learning on EFL students’ critical thinking skills since the method involves students in seeking, collecting, analyzing, synthesizing and evaluating information based on student interest.

Research question

This study was designed to answer the following research question:

What are the effects of using inquiry-based learning on EFL students’ critical thinking skills?

Research methodology

Design of the study.

The research design of the study was quasi-experimental that employs a time series design with single group participants. For the purpose of this study, the participants were given a series of three argumentative essay writing pretests before the intervention, inquiry-based argumentative writing instruction, and other three similar series of argumentative essay writing posttests.

Participants

In this study, a total of 20 EFL second year undergraduate university students who were enrolled for advanced writing skills course were selected using comprehensive sampling method. In the students’ university stay, Advanced Writing Skills Course is the final writing course given to them. Before this course, the students have taken both Communicative English Skills and Basic Writing Skills, and Intermediate Writing Skills Courses in their university stay. Earlier to these university courses, they have learned English language subject beginning from grade one to university.

Data gathering instruments

The data on the students’ critical thinking skills were gathered through tests, focus group discussion, and student-reflective journal.

The test that comprises both pretests and posttests was used to gather data on students’ critical thinking skills. Three consecutive argumentative essay writing pre-tests were given to understand the students’ existing critical thinking skills. Likewise, other three consecutive argumentative essay writing posttests were also given to determine the effects of the intervention, whether students’ critical thinking skills were improved. The tests were developed by the researchers considering the students’ local context and their background knowledge.

The critical thinking skills rubric was adapted from Facione ( 2015 ), “Critical Thinking: What It is and Why It Counts” (from APA Report: Expert Consensus Statement on Critical Thinking) incorporating common critical thinking skills including interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, and explanation. The rubric is a four point scale from one to four that refers to poor, good, very good, and excellent respectively. Two experienced EFL university teachers marked students’ argumentative essays independently based on the given criteria. Training on the use of the rubric was given to the raters. Inter-rater reliability was calculated with Pearson’s correlations (Pearson’s, r), and it was 0.75 which shows the reliability of the test.

Focus group discussion

The focus group discussion was needed to gather qualitative data on students’ critical thinking skills empowerment. The students were asked to forward their views on the relevance of inquiry-based learning to enhance their skills to interpret, analyze, evaluate, infer, explain, and self-regulate in writing argumentative essays.

Student-reflective journal

The Student-Reflective Journal was employed to collect data on the effectiveness of inquiry-based learning on students’ critical thinking skills. Accordingly, the participants were reported their feelings on the effectiveness of inquiry-based learning method and their critical thinking skills empowerment.

Procedure and data collection

In the data collection, first, a teaching material used to teach argumentative essay writing was prepared using the literature in accordance with inquiry-based learning method and critical thinking skills. In other terms, the teaching was developed in the way that enable the students to make observations; pose questions; examine sources; gather, analyze, interpret, and synthesize data; propose answers, explain and predict; communicate findings through discussion and reflection; apply their findings to the real situation, and follow up new questions that arise in the process because these are the focuses of inquiry-based learning. On the other hand, it also developed in the way that enable students to interpret, analyze, infer, evaluate, explain, and self-regulate which are the core critical thinking skills. In sum, the teaching material was prepared considering the components of inquiry-based learning, and critical thinking skills.

Then, three consecutive argumentative essay writing pre-tests were administered to the students to identify their critical thinking performance before the intervention. Following the pre-tests, the intervention was given.

The intervention was an inquiry-based argumentative essay writing instruction delivered for 4 weeks using the aforementioned teaching material. In the teaching-learning process students discover their own writing topics, generate ideas, evaluate what they have and what they need, gather and evaluate information from different sources, write up drafts with evidences, discuss with colleague and subject area experts for feedback, and write up essays related to their real life situation. When the intervention was given, the Student-Reflection Journal was collected from the students.

Next to the completion of the teaching-learning practice, the participants were given three consecutive argumentative essay writing post-tests which were identical with the pre-tests. The post-tests were needed to determine whether the inquiry-based essay writing instruction make improvements on students’ critical thinking skills. By the completion of the post-tests, the focus group discussion was conducted.

Data analysis methods

The quantitative data which were gathered through pre-tests and post-tests were analyzed using One-Way Repeated Measures ANOVA , using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 23 software program. One-Way Repeated Measures ANOVA was used to examine whether there were differences on students’ critical thinking skills in writing argumentative essays before and after the intervention. On the other hand, the qualitative data which were collected through focus group discussion and student-reflective journal were analyzed through narration.

Result and discussion

Essay writing tests.

The students were given three essay writing pretests and other three essay writing posttests in order to measure their critical thinking skills before and after the intervention. Accordingly, this section presents the students’ test results gained from the pretests and posttests which were analyzed using One Way Repeated Measures ANOVA .

Table 1 indicates that the students’ Mean scores in Pretest-1, Pretest-2, and Pretest-3, were 38.15, 38.00, and 38.35, respectively. The table also depicts that the students’ Mean scores in Posttest-1, Posttest − 2, and Posttest − 3, were 65.90, 65.70, and 66.25, respectively. From these results, we can understand that the students’ Mean scores in the pretests were similar. Likewise, their Mean scores in the Posttests were also similar. However, when the Mean scores in the Pretests and Posttests were compared, they have differences. In other words, the students’ Mean scores in the posttests were greater than those of the pretests. It indicates that the intervention made the differences on the students’ pretest and posttest Mean scores. In sum, it can be understood that the inquiry-based argumentative essay writing instruction has positive effects on the students’ critical thinking skills.

The findings of this study imply that inquiry-based learning has improved EFL students’ critical thinking skills which includes interpretation, analysis, inference, evaluation, explanation, and self-regulation. In line with this research finding, previous studies also show that inquiry-based learning has positive impacts on students’ critical thinking skills. Ash and Kluger-Bell ( 2012 ) find out that by using inquiry-based learning in writing lessons, students develop critical thinking skills, and learn how to generate and organize ideas through investigation or/and discussion to find out alternative ideas, and produce sound written papers. Inquiry-based learning is appropriate when deep discipline knowledge; higher-order thinking skills or strategies including reasoning skills; adequate motivational beliefs or attitude and value are intended as learning outcomes, rather than lower-order thinking skills like, to recall facts.

Table 2 shows the Within-Subjects Effects of the tests. In the table, the Sphericity Assumed indicated that 5 with-in subjects df, and 95 errors df . The Mean Square is 4632.348 with 8.468 F, and Significance value is .000. F (5, 95) = 547.065, p  < 0.005. It means that the students test scores have differences based on time, but the differences in all times are not the same.

Thus, in order to identify the difference among each of the test scores, Post Hoc analysis was run. The Post Hoc analysis for a repeated measures variable is a paired sample t-test.

Table 3 depicts that there were no difference between pretest-1 and pretest-2 (.603); pretest-1 and pretest-3 (.163); pretest-2 and pretest-3 (.273). In the same manner, there were no differences between posttest-1 and posttest-2 (.464); posttest-1 and posttest-3 (.376); posttest-2 and posttest-3 (.280). In contrast, there were differences in all of the remaining combinations (.000). It indicates that the differences were made due to the intervention given to the students. Thus, it can be concluded that the inquiry-based argumentative writing instruction improves the students’ critical thinking skills.

This finding shows that using inquiry-based learning in EFL classroom fosters students’ abilities to interpret, analyze, infer, evaluate, explain, and self-regulate which are the core critical thinking skills. In line with this research finding, Ghaemi and Mirsaeed ( 2017 ) revealed that doing inquiry-based activities in EFL classroom increased the critical thinking ability of the students which enable them to analyze, evaluate, and explain information. Thus, it shows that using inquiry-based writing instruction enhances students’ critical thinking skills.

The students’ focus group discussion result revealed that the use of inquiry-based learning in argumentative essay writing classes can enhance students’ critical thinking skills. Most of the focus group discussion participants reported that they had not wrote effective argumentative essays before they use inquiry-based learning method. However, after using this method of learning, they have developed their critical thinking skills including interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and self-regulation. For instance, one of the participants reported that his critical thinking skills have been enhanced after learning argumentative essay writing through inquiry-based learning method because he has developed the way to interpret, analyze, and evaluate information. He can generate logical ideas which are better to persuade his audiences, and write essays without emotional feelings.

The other focus group discussion participant voiced that the learning method empowers her critical thinking skills because before using inquiry-based learning her writings were not appropriate for audience. However, after taking the lessons in the intervention, she knows what to write considering her purpose and audience, how to analyze information, and how to produce reasonable argumentative essays.

The other student also mentioned his performance as follows:

My critical thinking skills such as interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and self-regulation are very good now. Especially, when I pick two points from these points, analysis and evaluation, I can analyze and evaluate written arguments because of the inquiry-based essay writing instruction. So now, I can easily interpret, analyze, and evaluate data, and even regulate myself to write my argumentative essay to persuade my audience.

In a similar manner, another participant also reported that in inquiry-based learning, she discovered her writing topic, searched for information, and evaluated, criticized and analyzed the collected data, and wrote drafts, incorporated necessary feedbacks, and produced effective essays in contrast to the previous methods. She further explained that during this process, her critical thinking skills were enhanced due to the instruction given through inquiry-based learning. Similarly, another respondent also said that after learning through inquiry-based learning, his critical thinking skills were enhanced. As he further elaborated, he could become to analyze and evaluate information in writing argumentative essays while using this method.

In addition, the students reported that the critical thinking skills that they enhanced in the teaching learning process were relevant to their real life situations. One of them stated that “every English language graduate person and critical thinking towards writing dependently go together. I am going to do two things in the future as an English graduate man. These are critically writing texts and critically evaluating what another person has written. So, I think, the critical thinking skills that I developed through inquiry-based writing instruction are helpful to the rest of my life”.

The students mentioned that critical thinking helps in their work life as university graduate students because it has a lot of things for them. According to their speech, they should be competitive enough to become successful in their work life. So, being a good critical thinker helps to think differently, and to be successful. They further voiced that skills can also help them to make good decisions in their real life situations apart from their working environment. In sum, the students’ focus group discussion results indicated that the students’ critical thinking skills including interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and self-regulation were enhanced due to the inquiry-based writing instruction. In the same manner, Ghaemi and Mirsaeed ( 2017 ) revealed that most of the participants who used inquiry-based learning believed that their critical thinking abilities changed positively. Therefore, it is worth mentioning that there should be opportunities for students to have enough exposure to inquiry-based learning.

The data gained from the students’ reflective journal indicated that when the students used inquiry-based essay writing instruction, they have developed their critical thinking skills including interpretation, analysis, and evaluation, synthesize, inference, explanation, and self-regulation. They note that the strategies used in the teaching learning process and incorporated in the teaching material were effective to improve their critical thinking skills. The students reported that the way they learned argumentative writing has enhanced their critical thinking skills like interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and self-regulation.

In line with this finding, a study conducted in Whittier College, USA to assess students’ feedback on the effectiveness of inquiry-based teaching in second language pedagogy shows that the method reinforced students’ understanding of the course material (Lee, 2014 ). In addition, McLean ( 2005 ); Abdullah ( 2014 ); Adege ( 2016 ) also revealed that empowering critical thinking skills among students in higher education especially in academic writing through the integration of critical thinking into the teaching learning process is essential in order to develop students’ problem solving, decision making and communication skills which are needed for their future carrier.

Therefore, based on the findings of the study, all together, it can be understood that using inquiry-based learning in argumentative essay writing class empowers students’ critical thinking skills including interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and self-regulation. In other terms, when the students have used inquiry-based argumentative writing instruction, they comprehend and expressed the meaning of their writing issues and judgments in their argumentative essays. They recognized the then argumentative issues and described them in their essays. The students have collected data on their topics and constructed categories of protagonist and antagonist ideas for their argumentative essay development. They also paraphrased ideas taken from other sources in their own words. These indicate that the students have developed their interpretation skills which is one of the core critical thinking skills.

In the same vein, the students have enhanced their analysis skills through inquiry-based learning. In inquiry-based writing instruction, the students identified the intended and actual inferential relationships among statements to express beliefs in their argumentative writing. The students examined ideas, detected, and analyzed arguments in their writing. They identified the similarities and differences between opposing ideas in developing their persuasive essays. The students drafted the relationship of sentences or/and paragraphs to each other and the main purpose of their argumentative essays. They also constructed convincing reasons to support or criticize a given argumentative idea, and reach on a strong conclusion. Thus, it shows that the students have enhanced their analysis skills which is one of the core critical thinking skills.

The results revealed that the students have developed their evaluation skills using inquiry-based instruction. In other words, in the teaching-learning process, the students have determined the credibility of their source of information while they gathered data for their writing topics. They assessed and compared the logical strengths and weaknesses of opposing arguments. They also judged whether the evidence at their hands did not contradict each other, and support their conclusion. Finally, they judged if their arguments in their argumentative essays were relevant and applicable in an existing real-life situation. It implies that the students have developed their evaluation skills, one of the core critical thinking skills through inquiry-based learning.

The students have also enhanced their inference skills in writing their argumentative essays through inquiry. This means that the students have identified pertinent thoughts needed to draw reasonable conclusions in their essays. In doing so, they formed conjectures and hypotheses; considered the relevant information, and educed consequences flowing their data. They questioned their evidence, conjectured alternatives, and drawn conclusions when they developed argumentative essays through inquiry-based learning. They constructed meaning from their readings and formulated synthesis of related ideas into a coherent perspective to produce sound argumentative essays.

Beyond interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference, the students explained what they think, and how they arrived at their judgments in developing their essays. In other terms, the students have developed their explanation skills due to the inquiry-based writing instruction. They have presented their argumentative essays in a cogent and coherent way. They stated and justified reasons in terms of their evidential and contextual considerations upon which their results were based. They presented their reasons in the form of persuasive arguments in their essays. They also reflected on the methods, procedures, and techniques (in the classroom) they used in writing their argumentative essays.

Finally, the data gained from the student-reflective journal and focus group discussion revealed that the students have developed their self-regulation skills, which is one of the core critical thinking skills, through using inquiry-based learning. Accordingly, the students confirmed that they self-consciously monitored or corrected their judgments in analyzing and evaluating contradictory ideas in producing their argumentative essays. They questioned themselves to examine, correct, and confirm their reasons for producing essays. They double-checked their reasons by recalculating their evidence. The students reconsidered their interpretations and judgments in the view of further analysis. They revised their answers in view of the errors they discovered in their argumentative essay writing. Even, they have changed some of their concluding ideas in view of the realization that they had misjudged the importance of certain factors when coming to their earlier decisions. Altogether, using inquiry-based argumentative writing instruction enhanced EFL students’ interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and self-regulation skills which are the core critical thinking skills.

In sum, though the findings of this study are in line with previous studies, most of them have examined the enhancement of critical thinking skills through using inquiry-based learning in writing classes in general rather than showing the effects of the method in argumentative essay writing classes in particular. Thus, the present study exclusively revealed the effects of using inquiry-based argumentative essay writing instruction on EFL students’ critical thinking skills. In other terms, it contributed to the existing literature in disclosing the effects of using inquiry-based argumentative writing instruction on EFL students’ critical thinking skills. Besides, the present study can contribute to the field of English as a foreign language education by showing the effects of using inquiry-based learning on students’ critical thinking skills in the local context where this study has been conducted. This is because, in the study area, inquiry-based learning seems to have been a missing feature of English as a foreign language learning.

Conclusion and implication

The findings of the study revealed that the use of inquiry-based learning in foreign language learning classroom empowers students’ critical thinking skills. Inquiry-based learning has positive impacts on students’ critical thinking skills which include interpretation, analysis, inference, evaluation, explanation, and self-regulation. In other terms, when the students have used inquiry-based argumentative essay writing instruction in their academic writing classes, they have comprehended and expressed their essay writing queries (interpretation); identified and examined arguments, reasons and claims (analysis); identified elements of claims, estimated alternatives, and drawn reasonable conclusions in writing their argumentative essays (inference). In the same manner, they also assessed the credibility of claims and quality of arguments made in their conclusions (evaluation); stated results, justified procedures, and presented arguments (explanation), and consciously monitored and corrected their writing activity (self-regulation) in producing argumentative essays. Thus, the students have developed their critical thinking skills by using inquiry-based argumentative writing instruction.

In inquiry-based writing instruction, the students discover writing topics; explore information on their topics; explain their discoveries, and elaborate their thinking through transforming their understanding into their real life situations. Thus, when the students came up through this distinct process in manipulating such tasks, their critical thinking skills enhance because this process develops the students’ abilities to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate various thoughts. Using inquiry-based learning in argumentative writing class enhance the students’ argumentative essay writing performance since the method enables them to discover their own writing topics, generate ideas, gather and evaluate information, write up drafts with evidences, discuss with colleagues and subject area experts, and produce sound argumentative essays.

When the students use inquiry-based learning in argumentative essay writing lessons, they generate and organize ideas through investigation and discussion, and later produce sound written texts. The students develop reasoning skills, collaborative working, and make connections to real life experiences when they learn through inquiry-based learning. The critical thinking skills that the EFL students develop through the inquiry-based writing instruction are relevant to their future working environment to write convincing texts and critically evaluate what other individuals have written. The abilities to interpret, analyze, evaluate, infer, explain, and self-regulate help the university students to be lifelong learners, and to be competitive enough in their future working life.

Therefore, inquiry-based writing instruction is suggested as a means to improve EFL students’ critical thinking skills because the method incorporates activity oriented learning, logical arguments, and collaboration. This is to imply the need to promote inquiry-based learning which is based on a discovery approach that mostly involve students in seeking, collecting, analyzing, synthesizing and evaluating information based on students’ interest. It is because using inquiry-based learning in writing classes promotes students’ academic performance and makes students active, problem solver, autonomous, and lifelong learners. Accordingly, EFL teachers should use inquiry-based learning in their language classrooms in order to develop students’ critical thinking skills. Similarly, teaching material developers need to consider the inquiry-based learning principles in developing language teaching materials so that students’ improve their critical thinking skills. Students should also use the inquiry-based learning techniques to produce effective argumentative texts, to be critical thinkers, and become lifelong learners.

Finally, the number of participants and the time given to the intervention were relatively small. However, it does not mean that the findings of the study are not representative since the selected participants have similarities with other students. In addition, it does not mean that the intervention is completely inadequate since the students practiced the whole inquiry process repeatedly. It is to mean that the findings of the study would have been more representatives and convincing if a greater number of participants had been included, and more time to the intervention had been used in the study. As a result, such future exploration would have contributed to the current study and is certainly an area ripe for future research. Furthermore, future studies should be also conducted on the effects of using inquiry-based learning on students’ speaking, reading, and listening skills to widen the use of inquiry-based learning in EFL instruction.

Availability of data and materials

Please contact corresponding author for data requests.

Abbreviations

English as a Foreign Language

Analysis of Variance

Statistical Package for Social Sciences

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Wale, B.D., Bishaw, K.S. Effects of using inquiry-based learning on EFL students’ critical thinking skills. Asian. J. Second. Foreign. Lang. Educ. 5 , 9 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40862-020-00090-2

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Outcomes of inquiry-based learning in health professions education: a scoping review

Résultats de apprentissage par le questionnement dans la formation des professionnels de la santé :une revue exploratoire, subhrata verma.

1 Division of Nephrology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Ontario, Canada;

Marina S Yacob

2 Department of Paediatrics, Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, Ontario, Canada;

Amrit Kirpalani

3 Department of Paediatrics, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, Western University, Ontario, Canada;

4 Division of Nephrology, Children’s Hospital, London Health Sciences Centre, Ontario, Canada;

Open inquiry-based learning (IBL) that aims to foster higher-level thinking, is defined by students formulating their own questions and learning through exploration. The present study aimed to summarize the breadth of metrics used to evaluate health professions trainees in open IBL curricula.

We conducted a scoping review to identify publications detailing trainee outcomes in open IBL initiatives in health professions education. We queried five databases and included studies which described interventions with five phases of IBL (orientation, conceptualization, investigation, conclusion, and discussion). We completed abstract and full text reviews in duplicate. Data were collated and summarized.

From 3030 record, 21 studies were included in the final extraction ( k = 0.94), with nine involving physician trainees and twelve involving nursing trainees. Three studies used validated data collection tools to measure student inquiry behavior, and a single study used a validated data collection tool to measure critical thinking abilities. Most studies ( n = 11) reported trainee self-reported satisfaction or perceived gain of skills as the primary outcome. All four studies using validated tools reported high scores in inquiry behaviors at the end of the curriculum and results on critical thinking skills were mixed. One study collected serial data, while remaining studies collected pre-post or post-only data.

IBL has the potential to cultivate a climate of curiosity among health professions learners. However, studies have relied heavily on subjective outcomes. Limited studies reported standardized measures of inquiry behaviors suggest favorable results. Curriculum innovations using IBL could make use of existing tools to better understand their impact on students’ inquiry-oriented skills.

L’apprentissage libre par le questionnement, qui vise à favoriser une réflexion de haut niveau, se définit par le fait que les étudiants formulent leurs propres questions et apprennent par l’exploration. La présente étude visait à faire l’inventaire des méthodes utilisées pour évaluer les étudiants des professions de la santé dans les programmes qui ont recours à l’apprentissage libre par le questionnement.

Méthodes

Nous avons effectué une étude une revue exploratoire pour recenser les publications traitant des résultats des étudiants inscrits dans des programmes de formation dans une professionde la santé qui appliquent la méthode de l’apprentissage libre par le questionnement. Nous avons interrogé cinq bases de données et inclus les études qui décrivaient des interventions portant sur cinq phases de l’apprentissage par le questionnement (orientation, conceptualisation, investigation, conclusion et discussion). Nous avons procédé à l’examen des résumés et du texte intégral par deux lecteurs indépendants. Les données ont été colligées et résumées.

Résultats

Sur 3030 documents, 21 études ont été incluses dans l’extraction finale (k=0,94), dont neuf concernaient des étudiants en médecine et douze des étudiants en sciences infirmières. Les auteurs de trois études ont utilisé des outils de collecte de données validés pour mesurer le démarchede recherche des étudiants, et ceux d’une seule étude ont employé un outil de collecte de données validé pour mesurer les capacités de réflexion critique. La plupart des études (n = 11) ont avancé comme résultat principal la satisfaction des étudiants ou l’amélioration ressentie de leurs compétences. Les quatre études réalisées à l’aide d’outils validés ont fait état de scores élevés en matière de démarche de recherche à la fin du programme, tandis que les résultats concernant les capacités de réflexion critique étaient mitigés. Dans l’une des études, les données avaient été recueillies de façon longitudinale et dans les autres, avant et après ou seulement après.

L’apprentissage par le questionnement a le potentiel de cultiver la curiosité chez les apprenants des professions de santé. Cependant, les études recensées se sont largement appuyés sur des critères subjectifs. Des études limitées qui présentaient des mesures standardisées de la démarche de recherche des étudiants et ont montré des résultats favorables. Pour leurs innovations pédagogiques faisant appel à l’apprentissage par le questionnement, les programmes peuvent recourir aux outils de mesure existants pour mieux comprendre l’impact de cette méthode sur l’aptitude des étudiants au questionnement.

Introduction

Health professions trainees in the 21 st century have access to an unprecedented amount of open access educational resources that greatly exceeds the organizational capacity of an individual’s mind. 1 In response, future practitioners must be proficient in knowledge acquisition. 2 The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching highlighted the need to incorporate habits of inquiry and improvement in the 2010 Call for Reform of Medical Education as a learning strategy to optimize proficiency in knowledge acquisition. 3 To meet the evolving needs of trainees and to foster greater student curiosity as the foundation for learning, inquiry-based learning (IBL) has emerged as an appealing educational strategy.

IBL focuses on learner driven acquisition of knowledge through development of inquiries, and hypothesis generation. This differs from problem-based learning in that PBL is focused on learner investigation of teacher provided problems. Comparative to problem-based learning is case based learning wherein learners are provided cases around which to target their investigation and research. Through exclusion of these other teaching methods and focusing only on open inquiry, we attempt to distinguish the specific benefits of pure trainee inquiry learning and consider how this can be incorporated in areas of health profession that involve mature learners such as post-graduate medical education and nursing education.

Educational philosopher John Dewey, a prominent education reformist in the early 20 th century laid the foundation for inquiry as a central focus of science education, and Jerome Bruner pioneered the inquiry-based instruction in science curricula 4 in the 1950s. The theory behind IBL is the constructivist, learner-driven active process of knowledge acquisition. Students formulate hypotheses and make observations in order to construct their knowledge. 5 While descriptions of IBL vary widely in the literature, the framework can be divided into five general phases: 5

• Orientation: the topic is introduced, and the student creates a problem statement,
• Conceptualization: the student develops an open question pertaining to the problem, and generates a hypothesis,
• Investigation: the student explores or observes, they may even experiment, and interpret their findings,
• Conclusion: the student reviews the problem, hypothesis, and their interpretation of the findings to consider whether their question has been answered, and,
• Discussion: the student communicates their findings to others (external) and reflects upon successes and areas for improvement within the inquiry process (internal).

While the IBL curriculum design has evolved and taken many forms since Bruner’s initial model, the core foundation of student-directed epistemic curiosity has been consistently aimed at encouraging active participation, and improving scientific literacy. 5 Studies in higher education have found that IBL can hone students’ analytical and critical thinking abilities, 6 and may improve students’ overall academic performance compared to a traditional lecture-based curriculum. 7

IBL has been variably classified and subdivided in the literature. Aditomo et al. grouped IBL curricula based on assigned tasks that include: scholarly research (students formulate questions and collect empirical data to address them), simplified research (students formulate question but only perform some aspects of data collection or analysis), literature-based research (no empirical data collection), and applied research (similar to simplified, though focused on practical issues and “real-world” problems). 8

In some cases, IBL has been considered as overlapping or else an umbrella term encompassing problem-based learning (PBL). 6 Some have sub-classified IBL based on the roles and responsibilities of teachers and students: 9

• Structured inquiry (e.g. PBL) – teachers provide a problem and an outline for addressing it,
• Guided inquiry – teachers provide questions to stimulate inquiry however students are self-directed in the investigation, conclusion, and discussion, and,
• Open inquiry – students develop questions themselves, and are self-directed in investigation, conclusion, and discussion.

While there have been apparent benefits of IBL in higher education, particularly with regards to fostering inquiry behavior, the outcomes of an IBL curriculum in health professions education are yet to be fully elucidated. In this scoping review, we examine the published literature exploring student outcomes in inquiry-based learning curricula in health professions training. We aim to describe the extent of existing literature in this area, to characterize study designs and outcomes, and to identify gaps in the health professions’ literature where future studies on IBL should focus.

Our study followed the framework of Arksey and O’Malley 10 and the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews. 11 Our preliminary research question explored the extent of published literature on IBL curricula in medical education. Our initial literature search revealed a scarcity of studies, and we iteratively refined this question after an extensive literature review to identify, characterize, and evaluate the scope of published studies IBL in health professions education and to identify remaining gaps in this area (Appendix A).

Terms and definitions

Whereas IBL has been variably defined and categorized in the literature, we adopted the pedagogical approach of Oğuz-Ünver & Arabacioğlu, 12 and Feletti 13 which differentiates “pure” IBL from PBL, wherein the former is founded on student-driven inquiry in a guided or open manner, and the latter on problem-solving through structured inquiry. For the purpose of this review, we have considered structured inquiry as being PBL, and guided- and open- inquiry as IBL. We also used the framework of Aditomo et al 8 to subclassify IBL curricula based on assigned tasks.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Studies were eligible for inclusion if they a) evaluated an inquiry-based learning curriculum as defined above, b) studied a population of health professionals or health professions trainees, and c) reported trainee outcomes.

We excluded studies if they described multiple curricular modalities (e.g. evaluated a program with IBL, PBL and traditional lecture-based components) without providing specific evaluation of the IBL component.

Search strategy

We searched Embase, MEDLINE through PubMed, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and ERIC for eligible peer-reviewed records published up to April 20, 2021. To ensure full capture of eligible studies, bibliographies of commentaries, reviews, and book chapters were reviewed to identify additional relevant records. We consulted a librarian in the development and refinement of the search strategy, and we iteratively refined search terms until saturation was reached. The search strategy is reported in Supplemental Digital Appendix A. All studies collected were imported into Covidence online software for screening and review. 14 There were no date or language restrictions.

Review and data abstraction

After removal of duplicate studies, two reviewers independently screened all titles and abstracts against inclusion and exclusion criteria (SV and AK). Full text review was conducted independently and in duplicate. Percent agreement and Cohen’s κ statistic were calculated to evaluate interrater reliability in accordance with published guidelines. 15 All studies meeting inclusion criteria were submitted for data abstraction (SV, MY, and AK). Abstracted data points included publication date, research questions, population, study design, data collection tools and outcomes. Content was double-checked for accuracy.

Study selection

A PRISMA diagram of the study selection is shown in Figure 1 . Our search resulted in 3320 studies. After removal of duplicates, 2919 studies were eligible for screening. Two authors reviewed all records in duplicate with a percent agreement of 98.0% and κ statistic of 0.784 indicating substantial agreement. Twenty-one full-text records were submitted for abstraction and inclusion in the final analysis. Percent agreement for full-text review was 98% (κ = 0.939). Disagreements were resolved by discussion of rationale for inclusion or exclusion amongst the authors. The earliest record meeting inclusion criteria was from 2000.

PRISMA diagram of study retrieval

Study design and population

Included studies are summarized in Appendix B. All 21 studies provided data on trainee outcomes, and 17 of these had this as a primary objective. Twelve studies included nursing students or licensed nurses. Nine studies included medical students, residents or fellows in their study population. One study was done as a randomized trial; the remainder of the studies were quasi-experimental.

Data collection tools

The primary method of evaluation across the majority of the studies ( n = 19) was via student surveys. Only four studies used a validated survey tool to assess trainee outcomes while the remaining studies used investigator-designed surveys with no clear evidence of validation and a single study did not describe the data collection tool. Only one study collected serial data, while eight studies provided both pre- and post- intervention data, and the remainder had only post intervention data ( n = 13).

Trainee outcomes

Ten studies included some form of objective trainee outcomes however, in five of those studies, objective data included only course administrative information such as project poster presentations completed after the intervention, rather than assessments of behavior or competence. The majority of studies ( n = 11) primarily gathered subjective, self-reported outcomes through qualitative methods (e.g. Trainee perceived confidence with IBL).

Trainee Perceptions . Subjective trainee outcomes about IBL were predominantly positive across all studies ( n = 11). Generally, trainees felt that IBL methodology would be useful for their future career. There was a general increase in perceived skills and comfort level. Few studies ( n = 3) reported negative subjective student outcomes. In one study that implemented an IBL curriculum (Fin et al) trainees had difficulty understanding the concept of IBL and gained only a superficial understanding with limited application to practice, based on teacher observations. Tamayo et al described greater difficulty with and interest in the course when an IBL curriculum was used 16 . Overall, there is evidence that IBL generally has a positive perception among most students but can be challenging for some to grasp.

Objective metrics . Within the few studies ( n = 4) that used a validated data collection tool (see Table 1 ), outcomes of interest included quantifiable changes in behavior or analytical ability. All of these studies reported high scores in inquiry behaviors at the end of the curriculum and results on critical thinking skills were mixed. Wentland et al showed a significant increase in perceived skills in finding and re-reviewing evidence post IBL intervention. 17 Kim et al showed improved scores in all Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) activities post IBL intervention. 18 The third study by Magnusse et al used the Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA) tool to measure critical thinking skills, and found no difference in the mean WGCTA scores pre- and post- intervention. When separated into terciles the lowest group had a significant increase in scores while the highest group dropped with no change in the middle group. This suggested a possible benefit for trainees with the lowest baseline proficiency in critical thinking. 19 Lastly, Brondfield et al, used a modified Delphi design to create and validate survey tool to measure inquiry behaviors (e.g. justifying statements with evidence, acknowledging limitations of one’s own knowledge), and demonstrated that students self-graded and faculty-graded inquiry behaviors improved significant through serial measurements over the course of an IBL curriculum. 20

Validated data collection tools in included studies

Inquiry-based learning task assignments . The IBL curricula across all studies were grouped into five assigned tasks based on the Aditomo classification: 1 Fifteen used a scholarly research method, four used a simplified research method, one used literature-based inquiry and one used applied research.

All ( n = 15) studies using a scholarly research method reported an increase in trainee confidence, and perceived improvement in skills or benefit to their future career after the IBL learning intervention. Among the four studies that used a simplified research method, all used surveys to assess trainee outcomes. Student satisfaction was favorable, use of EBP resources increased, and students gained more comfort and interest in their chosen topic. The authors also noted a number of poster presentations from participants at scientific conferences. The lone study that used applied research also used a validated outcome tool that demonstrated a significant increase in students’ perceived inquiry skills.

This review provides a summary of the use of inquiry-based learning in health profession literature. It demonstrates evidence of the potential for IBL to cultivate learner growth and promote a climate of curiosity among health professionals. Education researchers should be encouraged to investigate further the utility and benefits of IBL, the data collected in this review supports this endeavour in health profession education. With accumulation of more rigorous evidence, IBL may be incorporated into both undergraduate and post-graduate health profession courses at both individual project levels and larger course curricula levels. However, most studies rely heavily on subjective trainee outcomes, experimental research designs, and validated tools are infrequently used. Use of validated tools in future research will contribute to rigorous designs and collection of objective, reproducible data.

The existing literature has a lack of validated tools and substantial reliance on subjective perception. Within this cohort of studies, the WGCTA (Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal) measured critical thinking abilities, 19 the DEBPQ (Developing Evidence Based Practice Questionnaire), EBP Questionnaire, EBP beliefs scale, and KAS-R (Kim Alliance Scale) measured inquiry knowledge and skills, 17 , 18 and the tool from Brondfield et al 20 measured primarily observable inquiry behaviours. 20 This tool showed validity for both self and faculty assessment of trainees, and may be used for serial measurements of inquiry behaviours.

Additional research into IBL can help with development of this learning strategy and incorporation of IBL into curricula. When researching IBL, studies may draw upon existing data collection devices used in other teaching modalities. Existing literature in has reviewed instruments used for evaluation of self-directed learning, team based learning and peer evaluation in team based learning. 21 - 23 Additionally, although self-evaluations can provide insight, Papinczak et al 24 demonstrated that such self-evaluations in problem-based learning is not an accurate measure of student performance. 24 Various validated assessment tools have been developed for problem based learning in medical education including checklists, 25 and objective structured clinical exams (OSCEs). 26 - 28 Further study into the reliability and construct validity of these tools in IBL may help to establish their use in this area, and this may reduce researchers’ reliance on trainee self-evaluation as the sole outcome.

These numerous studies assessing validity of evaluation tools within specific learning methods provide a basis for educators to properly design and evaluate curricula. Such literature in the realm of inquiry-based education is important to demonstrate the utility of IBL in medical education. Additionally, in order to encourage dissemination, a repertoire of validated tools for IBL should be easily accessible to educational institutions.

The IBL literature we identified focused on experimental design that involved incorporating IBL into curricula. There was a lack of literature using non-experimental, or literature-search based designs (e.g. where no empirical data collection is required). These should be explored further as potentially more feasible and widely available modality for individual studies. Most included studies introduced IBL through a research project assignment, and while this did show variable success, this framework may be difficult for widespread use based on task complexity, and a lack of available personnel and resources.

Overall, evaluating and implementing IBL in health professions education requires the development of high quality and rigorously designed studies. This may be achieved by promoting collaborative, multicenter work, focus on validated tools aimed at higher level outcomes and use of serial measurements to evaluate interventions. In addition to education, IBL may have a role in patient care and partnership with clinical researchers who may help to assess the translational potential into clinical medicine.

Future directions for IBL research include consideration of non-experimental research designs, extrapolating tools from other teaching modalities, use of validated tools when appropriate, and collaborative multicenter work.

There are limitations of this review that must be considered. Selected articles focused on IBL-exclusive curricula only, and multimodal programs that may have included an IBL component were not encompassed in the search. It is important to consider that validated tools are typically validated for specific purposes and their use in different contexts may require re-validation. Extrapolation of tools from literature would therefore need to be done with this in consideration. Additionally, due to variability in definitions, studies that used IBL format may have been categorized under different learning strategies such as problem-based or team-based learning and therefore not included in our study. Lastly, a publication bias may result in studies with negative results being inadequately captured.

IBL methods have been effectively used in various educational settings including health profession education. This curriculum design holds promise in fostering behavioral changes for health professions trainees’ ability to nurture their own curiosity and refine their scholarly aptitudes. There is a need for further study with refined data collection methods to adequately assess the potential benefits of these curricula, and novel validated tools may help advance curriculum design in this domain.

Appendix A.

((project-based OR design-based) NEAR/3 (learn* OR teach* OR educat* OR intruct* OR course* OR curriculum* OR practic* OR study*))

OR ((inquiry OR enquiry OR inquiry-based OR enquiry-based) NEAR/3 (learn* OR teach* OR educat* OR intruct* OR course* OR curriculum* OR practic* OR study*)))

AND (medic* student* OR nurs* OR resident* OR medic* residen* OR nurs* student* OR nurs* educat* OR medic* educat* OR health profession* OR undergrad* medic* OR health occupation*)

Appendix B. Summary of Included Studies

Funding Statement

Funding: No funding was received for this manuscript.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors have no conflicts to disclose.

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The effect of inquiry based learning models on students' critical thinking ability and self-efficacy in reaction rate material

N A Kamal 1 and Suyanta 2

Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd Journal of Physics: Conference Series , Volume 1806 , International Conference on Mathematics and Science Education (ICMScE) 2020 14-15 July 2020, Jawa Barat, Indonesia Citation N A Kamal and Suyanta 2021 J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 1806 012179 DOI 10.1088/1742-6596/1806/1/012179

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1 Pendidikan Kimia, Program Pascasarjana, Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta, Jalan Colombo No. 1, Karang Malang, Kecamatan Depok, Kabupaten Sleman, 55281, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

2 Jurusan Kimia, Fakultas MIPA, Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta, Jalan Colombo No. 1, Karang Malang, Kecamatan Depok, Kabupaten Sleman, 55281, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

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This research aims to distinguish students' critical thinking and self-efficacy when learning with the inquiry based model and direct instruction model. The samples of this research were two classes of the eleventh grade and selected by random sampling technique. Two classes were selected as the samples, one class as the experimental class where the inquiry-based model was implemented and the other class as the control class where the learning was facilitated with the direct instruction model. The data of the students' self-efficacy were collected through a questionnaire while the data of the critical thinking were obtained through a test on reaction rate. The researcher used MANOVA to analyze the differences of the students' critical thinking and self-efficacy. The results reveal that there are significant differences in the critical thinking skills and self-efficacy and the effective contribution of inquiry-based learning and direct instruction to students' critical thinking skills and self-efficacy is 20.6%, the effective contribution of inquiry-based learning and direct instruction to students' critical thinking skills is 13.6%, the effective contribution of inquiry-based learning and direct instruction to students' self-efficacy is 8.9% where experimental class was better than control class.

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10 Studies Every Teacher Should Know About

How to integrate the science of reading, plan for effective review sessions with your students, think about inquiry-based learning, and more.

Our understanding of what works in classrooms has shifted considerably in the last decade. Cognitive scientists have used powerful new technologies to peer into the learning brain, revealing the critical—and often underestimated—importance of downtime and brain breaks. Other researchers, meanwhile, have pored over hundreds of experimental studies to identify outstanding practices teachers can count on, and quantified the benefits when those practices are applied with fidelity.

Here are 10 recent studies that we think have something important to add to the field of education—and should be on every teacher’s radar.

POWER UP YOUR REVIEW SESSIONS

Two authoritative literature reviews, led by John Dunlosky in 2013 and Shana Carpenter in 2022 , make encyclopedic contributions to the canon of effective learning strategies.

There are areas of clear consensus. Both Dunlosky and Carpenter zero in on the power of low-stakes practice tests, which can take the form of ungraded multiple choice, free-recall, or short-answer quizzes given by teachers—or can be self-administered by students using “actual or virtual flashcards“ or “practice problems from textbooks,“ according to Dunlosky's study.

Other relatively simple forms of review like brain dumps , explaining material to yourself or to peers, and question-and-answer sessions are also effective, but there’s a general rule of thumb, according to Carpenter: When processing information, students must actively recall material from memory . Superficial strategies that require less effort, like rereading, highlighting, or copying, are typically far less productive.

Teachers who conduct a single session of review practice “can generate memory improvements that persist for 9 months,“ Carpenter and her colleagues say, “and the positive effects of retrieval over multiple sessions can last for at least 8 years.“

How frequently should material be revisited? Students who engage in review sessions further apart in time dramatically outperform students who engage in sessions clustered closer together in time—a phenomenon called the spacing effect. While there is “no universal ideal spacing schedule,” says Carpenter, teachers should think in terms of days, weeks, or even months. Allow for more time between sessions when material is already familiar to students, and less time when students have a more tenuous grasp of the information. 

The takeaway: Identify foundational concepts in your curriculum and weave them repeatedly through activities like low-stakes practice tests, review sessions, brain dumps, and group work throughout the year. Space your review activities days, weeks, or even months apart for best results. 

SHOULD YOU OPT FOR DIRECT INSTRUCTION, OR INQUIRY?

Despite the public battles pitting advocates of direct instruction against defenders of inquiry-based learning—each side vouches for the superiority of its methods—a comprehensive 2023 review of literature on the topic suggests that the combatants may be missing the point entirely.

“In our view,” write the study’s authors, “the debate should move beyond this contrast, because the merits of either approach can be very context dependent.” When teaching students that the chemical formula for water in H 2 O or asking them to perform “straightforward operations” like “how to calculate the number of atoms in 118 grams of water,” direct instruction may well be the most efficient means at a teacher’s disposal. But when the material is more open-ended or requires students to apply learning in tricky new contexts—“how does water’s boiling point change with altitude?”—inquiry-based learning may be a better way to “foster deep conceptual understanding,” the researchers note. 

Inside real classrooms, teachers move fluidly between modes: They might conduct a lecture for 20 minutes, then ask students to research a related phenomenon and propose hypotheses. Or, having established a strong foundation of knowledge through direct instruction, they may proceed to a project or research paper that requires students to generate their own knowledge within a domain. 

Moving briskly through dozens of reviews on the topic, the researchers locate the same dynamics in real-world settings: The shifting demands of both the curriculum—and the students—means ”that teachers need not be bound to one mode throughout and can flexibly decide on the pedagogical approach for each concept and situation.” Combining elements of each approach, they note with a hint of weariness, “seems unavoidable when designing realistic, comprehensive real-classroom intervention.”

The takeaway: Combine direct instruction, such as lectures, demonstrations, and closely-guided practice, with inquiry-based approaches that promote deeper comprehension and transference, such as open-ended questions, self-directed research, and projects. Be flexible and let the needs of your students and your learning goals guide your decisions.

THE VALUE OF BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE FOR ALL AGES

A growing number of studies aligned with the “science of reading”—all published in the last few years—shed light on the critical importance of embedding themes across your lessons, working to connect new material to prior learning, and building upon a rich foundation of background knowledge that students can access when encountering new ideas.

In a Harvard-led 2023 study , researchers compared a traditional approach to reading instruction—building skills like identifying the main idea or citing evidence from the text—to a “knowledge-rich” approach that asked students to familiarize themselves with a topic in order to build “generalized schemas that can be accessed and deployed when new, but related, topics are encountered.” For example, if learning about how animals survive, they’ll start with “concrete cases” such as polar bears living in the Arctic, which later help them with more difficult but related concepts such as adaptation and ecosystems. Compared to their peers, students in the background knowledge approach scored 18 percent higher on later, science-related reading comprehension tests.

Building upon the same content-rich approach, another 2023 study , this one led by University of Virginia researchers, saw reading scores improve by 16 percentile points—a gain that would see U.S. students jump from 15th to fifth place on international reading tests, if implemented nationally.

As you start new lessons, reinforce connections: Ask students to review a video or reading that introduces new information, then have them identify new vocabulary terms and concepts and actively connect them to prior learning. In 2013, researchers discovered that when sixth-grade students created concept maps to connect related ideas, for example, their reading comprehension scores rose sharply.

The takeaway: When planning for the year, identify a few unifying themes, and then ”ask yourself, ‘How can we integrate instruction around a coherent schema?’” suggest James Kim and Mary Burkhauser, who led the Harvard study on background knowledge. Kick off new units with activities that provide accessible, familiar entry points and have students work to connect them to the “big ideas” they’ve been exploring all year.

DRAW MORE TO LEARN MORE

In recent years, cognitive scientists have endorsed the notion that drawing is a powerful way to learn, since students not only encode the material more deeply—processing information visually, kinesthetically, and semantically.

But kids don’t need to be artists to partake of the benefits. In a 2022 study , researchers asked students to create simple sketchnotes focused on “capturing the relationships described in texts”—linking critical concepts with arrows, annotations, and other relational markings to create a bird’s-eye view of the conceptual terrain. With the image completed and a new vantage point established, students were able to take stock of how ideas were connected and spot conceptual gaps in their thinking. Fifth graders who created sketchnotes outperformed their study-only peers by 23 percent on later tests of higher-order thinking, an outcome the researchers attributed to the creation of a “coherent mental model” that helped students “see the big picture.” 

Representational drawings, meanwhile—simple sketches of cells or tectonic boundaries, for example—can boost factual recall by nearly double, according to a 2018 study , but are less effective in terms of seeing how ideas connect broadly across a topic. Ask students to draw as a follow-on activity when introducing key concepts that lend themselves to visuals, because drawing is an effective “memory facilitator,” the researchers explain, and forces students to produce a “detailed recollection, as opposed to a more general feeling of familiarity.”

The takeaway: Drawing is generally underutilized in classrooms, and offers a wide range of productive formats. From more detailed renderings to simple sketches, mind maps, and annotated flow charts, drawing reliably deepens factual recall and comprehension as students tap into multiple ways to reconstruct the material.

PLAN BREAK TIME INTO LESSON PLANNING

More seat time equals more learning, one common view of education holds.

But recent studies cast doubts on the claim. In 2021, neuroscientists at the National Institutes of Health used magnetoencephalography—a sensitive brain-scanning technique—to observe the neural activity of young adults as they learned how to type with their nondominant hand. After a practice session, the study participants were given a short break before continuing to work on acquiring the skill.

When analyzing the data, the researchers discovered that during wakeful rest the brains of the participants replayed the typing sequences over and over at a high rate of speed—flipping the material from the neocortex, where sensory and motor skills are processed, to the hippocampus, the brain’s memory center, over two dozen times in the span of 10 seconds. 

Below the threshold of consciousness, the researchers confirmed, participants were mentally practicing the skill during breaks. The finding echoes a groundbreaking 2001 study that traced the same “neural replay” activity in rats who were learning how to navigate mazes. We greatly underestimate the value of waking rest during learning, the scientists suggest. The success of early learning, in particular, is largely determined by the small gains that “occur between, rather than during, practice periods,” the study authors note—and incorporating downtime into your learning activities “ plays just as important a role as practice in learning a new skill.”

The takeaway: Brain breaks aren’t just ways to cool off and re-energize; they’re an integral part of memory consolidation and may even play a role in developing new insights. When planning lessons—particularly those that cover new material—consider blocking off intervals of rest, relying on simple activities like letting kids listen to music, chat for a minute or two with friends, or take a quick walk around the room.