Twelve tips for starting Enquiry Based Learning.

Over the past year I have been developing a model of Enquiry based learning, although the journey is infact much longer. The elements I have used come from multiple sources such as Problem Based Learning, The Critical Skills Programme, TEEP's ideas on collaborative problem solving, Learning Skills In Science (which I piloted with the Wiezmann Institute), Learning to Learn, PEEL's ideas on learning processes, a generic Enquiry cycle, a science specific hierarchy of different kinds of structures (search for Carl Wenning at Illinois State University), and Science in the classroom from the How Students Learn series by the national academies press in the US. This list of inspirations are indicative of the difficulties in defining enquiry, but highlights why having a pedagogical purpose in our teaching.

So what I'm intending to do is list some teacher thinking required to construct enquiry experiences within the classroom. These are not in any particular order.
1. Teachers need to see enquiry as intergrated to everything that they do, it's not an add on. So that normal everyday lessons will share strategies, tools or develop attributes that will allow students to be independent enquirers. This is what I mean by pedagogical purposes.
2. A note on tech, this is not a substitute for pedagogical purpose. Infact, Tech requires extra planning, so that's purposeful, and develops what you want to develop. It does not mean that if students are using say Etherpad that they actually collaborating, in enquiries the process of collaborating is important and will require feedback.
3. Be aware that students (and tempting for teachers too) will be product focused, very much at the expense of the process. Teachers should let them make this mistake, and use a combination of non judgemental feedback and rigorous debriefing to tackle this. Students will progress on this teachers or more accurately facilitators need a geological view on this.
4. Students require multiple metacognitive activities during this as well as time to make their own mistakes and do their own learning. Teachers need to be observant. Post it notes with praise, prompts or interjections are a non invasive way of influencing the route the lesson is taking.
5. Teachers will find it beneficial to make detailed notes on who said and did what. Tallying how many people are engaged in discussion, the number of points,nods, smiles all help provide a full picture of the process the students have and / or are undertaking.
6. Long term planning is essential not only how the locus of control can be assumed by the students,but also how the afore mentioned tools and strategies can support the students with this.
7. Students will require a structure to research. My students have found Read----> thinking tool----> notes. As a way of genuinely learning from their researching.
8. Students will need training on how to ask questions that can be persued. The right stimulus that may have been tested to asses it's fruitfulness,is essential.
9. Teachers are facilitators and should constrain their influence. They must provide high quality, frequent feedback. The classroom environment they provide should be safe to allow risk taking and failure with confidence. This does not happen overnight.
10. Teachers should not lose the focus of why enquiries are a useful experience and become product focused. This focus allows them to create the time needed for students to reflect on successes and experiences this should be augmented by a thorough debriefing process. Therefore a shared language is needed to do this.
11. Beware of the word fun, everyone has a different perception about what this means. Learning experiences can be satisfying if the students are appropriately challenged, stimulated into thinking for themselves and feel as though they are making progress. The design of the enquiry should consider these parameters first.
12. There are many enquiry models available some generic and some subject specific. Choose a flexible one that you can adapt to you and you're students needs. These structures are essential early in the students enquiring training and plans should be made on how you can withdraw them over a year or more if you need.

A good start point for Further Reading is at Futurelabs Enquiring minds project as well as the sources of inspiration mentioned above.
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A model of (Science) Enquiry

Model Science Enquiry

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Teachmeet North East - SOLO Taxonomy presentation.and the pedagogical purpose of the slides.

Waaoo And The Little Pigs

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This is not a script, but, the pedagogical purposes behind the decision I made in creating my Teachmeet micro.

Click the link to watch the presentation.


The first two slides have the purpose of providing an emotional hook into the presentation and pose the conundrum about how we see and measure learning in the classroom. They are about how my son, and how he has developed his language skills from the omnipotent Waaoo to being able to read the word Mango without ever been taught to do so. This journey is visible and unmissable to every parent, but do we see this in our classrooms.?

I think SOLO Taxonomy is a way that we could do this for every student.

The slides tell the story of the increasingly knowledgeable pigs who are using increasingly sophisticated thinking to escape the clutches of an evil wolf. The bricks to house simile is on its own a powerful (not mine) way to visualise SOLO's taxonomy.The choice of a story makes it more memorable , engaging and more familiar, we learn by making connections to what we already know.We have all known the story of the three little pigs from childhood. The slides highlight how bricks of knowledge can be linked and built into more complex forms of demonstrating learning. The uses of different types of buidling materials for example roofing tiles, just adds to this image. To be secure the pig needs to use different materials in a coherent and coordinated way. SOLO taxonomy does exactly this.

In the background I use a range of what appears to be abstract images, a dot, a line a series of lines etc. These are a subconscious link to the real structure of SOLO Taxonomy. My students recognised this when I did this presentation with them. It is designed to give that familiar aahhh feeling during the video that appears later. As I have just said the brain likes to make connections with things it already recognises.

About half way through the story I indicate that something may or not be true. The pedagogical purpose of this is to pass the decision over to the audience. I have manipulated the SOLO taxonomy, but do not know if it is a valid change. I'm learning too. So all I am saying is I'm not sure here please think about it. Its that same as responding "maybe" to a student who asks if an answer is correct, they really go away thinking about it, which would not happen if you said "yes" or "No".

So when I show the video of the frankly outstanding primary students talking in detail about the SOLO structure and their learning with not only confidence but in an extended abstract fashion ( do you notice the consolidatory use of the SOLO taxonomy language there!) the symbols that are used are familiar.



I set the video up by hinting that the video may be from Biggs, the creator of the Taxonomy, by using the word expert. This was done for three reasons, firstly the students give a concrete version of the Taxonomy that I did not, secondly a little bit of humour makes a useful hook and that these students are truly inspiring. If i had of chosen another form of presenting the overall structure it may of appeared that it was useful for bright older students, but by using these young geniuses it clearly demonstrates that it is useful to all students. They really do provide a wow moment, as they show their genuine understanding of and appreciation of the Taxonomy. This was palpable during the presentation inducing a spontaneous round of applause. They did everything I could not do, making teachers want to get their students to be like them.

The next few slides just show classroom examples, for the simple reason that when you see a hierarchy or taxonomy it is not always evident how you can apply it in the classroom, so these just show a couple of real examples of its application and its impact on progress, despite only being introduced by stealth. I am only just beginning to fully develop these ideas with classes.

The final slide was not used, but was put in to potentially start a learning conversation at the Teachmeet, so some are a little facetious (well, most), others argumentative and other down right silly. The plan for using this slide was to display it as I walked of, leaving behind a list (too long to read ) of unanswered questions. Too many, to contrast with the lack of words in the presentation: a list as different people will start reading at different points, and the fact that it was impossible to read them all, in the hope that it would make it easy for someone to approach me to ask "what was that on the last slide.....". I wish I used it now, when is the next Teachmeet......So I guess its of to Hookedonthinking.com for more inspiration. Please check it out.

Random name generators- A democratic method.

Following Fergus Hegarty's demonstration of a randon name generator at last nights TeachMeet North East (Flashmeeting here ). I decided to debrief my students about why they like it and how it helps them to learn.They had just had a lesson where I asked a question an d then nomintaed a student using a name selector after a few secons. ( These few seconds ensures all students get to think about the problem posed.) This is their response.



An interesting and revealing read, showing how democracy and fairness in the classroom is very much valued by our students, and that they all deep down want to be involved in discussions. This appears to be the opposite of what you might expect, you may think students may not want to be involved and shy away from the challenge, this simply is not the case.

There seems to be no doubt that a random name generator raises their intrinsic motivation for this, so I am now eager for our next lesson to find out if this is maintained without its use. I think novelty is a big part,so, too frequent use will erode its appeal. It will be back to me selecting students, which has its own use, especially differentiating questions and targetting specific students. It is interesting to note that they don't see me as being inclusive as being totally random. Is this the classroom equvalent of the i-pod shuffle phenomena?

I am particularly pleased by their pedagogical knowledge of this stategy, namely that it makes everyone think even if they are not asked a question which is nicely summarised by Luke who identifies that sometimes students "do not answer questions at all".

The use of wait time is essential for this strategy to work,so asking the question with a small wait before the student is selected ansures that all students have to think of an answer.More difficult questions may induce a small discussion before the student is selected.

A basic selector can be made in PowerPoint by putting one name per slide,setting the transition to zero seconds, and setting the slides to loop unti "Esc".