Inquiry-Based Learning

I knelt beside my sons’ toy closet, hauling out a strange menagerie of action figures. Here was a headless Tauntaun from Star Wars. There was the Smog Monster from Godzilla. How about the empty robe of a Nazgul from Lord of the Rings, or the Pokemon that kids call Gyarados but that most adults couldn’t name—let alone describe?

“What are you doing with all those old toys, Dad?” asked my youngest son.

“Teaching descriptive writing,” I replied cryptically.

Twenty-four hours later, I arrived in Chicago at the Annual Convention of the National Council of Teachers of English, towing that huge suitcase full of weird action figures. I met PBL teacher Cindy Smith there, and the two of us presented “Using Inquiry Projects to Teach Language Arts.”

Cindy and I have collaborated over three years in her project-based-learning classroom, and we’d come to the NCTE convention to share eight of our projects and inquiry experiences.

Despite the lateness of the hour (last session on Saturday) and the location (it was on a half floor that most of the elevators didn’t stop at), we had 30 or 40 educators at the session, and we dived right in.

If you or your students are new to inquiry and project-based learning—or if you just need some popular-culture inspiration for your program—you should check out the following hit TV shows. Each one uses the inquiry process to create amazing projects:

1. Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel is a classic show that investigates modern myths and viral videos, using science to determine whether they are confirmed, plausible, or “busted.” (Let’s face it, the more formal term—burst—doesn’t work as well as busted.) In every episode, Jamie Hyneman, Adam Savage, and their cohorts test myths using the inquiry process. Each show starts with a myth that the team wants to examine.
   • Questioning: The team asks the key questions about the myth. What are its parts? How can we test each part? What are the potential hazards of our testing? How can we use the materials that we have? How can we ensure great TV from picking apart this myth?
   • Planning: The next step often involves sketching ideas, creating scale models, rapid prototyping, and benchmarking. At this point, the team is considering how they can confirm or deny the myth.
   • Researching: When the crew needs to find out more, they search online and even travel off-line to places like NASA or bomb ranges to get the necessary information.
   • Creating: The team gathers the materials and tools they need and builds an experiment for finally testing the myth. They use all sorts of motors, computers, high-speed cameras—and not a little duct tape.
   • Improving: Rarely do things go right the first time, so the team must reevaluate what they are doing. They make adjustments, adding, removing, rearranging, and reworking parts.
   • Presenting: At long last, the team runs the final, definitive test to determine if a myth is true or not—often with surprising results. Recently, Jamie and Adam tried to make a Newton’s cradle out of wrecking balls. That’s radical science!

Inquiry is based on questions, but not all questions are created equally. Big questions open up big spaces for information, while little questions open up little spaces. The size of the answer is predicted by the size of the question.

Suppose that a bug specialist (an entomologist) comes to speak in your Life Science class. After giving a presentation, the entomologist opens the floor for questions. Note what happens when students ask little questions instead of big ones.

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