It is an approach which gives students ownership of their learning.
It starts with exploration and questioning and leads to investigation into a worthy question, issue, problem or idea.
It involves asking questions, gathering and analysing information, generating solutions, making decisions, justifying conclusions and taking action.
The inquiry-based approach to learning is based on the belief that students are powerful learners who are actively engaged in the process of investigating, processing, organising, and extending their knowledge within a topic.
The Ministry of Education has provided an interactive tool developed to help teachers and students explore and engage in the inquiry approach to learning. It has been developed as part of the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC).
One of the key purposes of the inquiry approach is to re-enforce the relationships and inter-dependencies of the questions students ask.
The tool is based on that idea, and seeks to promote the concepts that the social inquiry process:
- has no single 'correct' or 'definitive' approach
- does not need to have a definitive 'start' and 'end' point
- should not be treated as having a fixed number of steps
- becomes more informative and useful the more times any individual aspect is revisited and revised.
An interactive version of the planner is available at http://socialinquiry.ssol.tki.org.nz. Create a FREE account to use it.
Also, for convenience static versions of the planner are available below for you to download.
Frame your Shared Histories Project using First World War Inquiry Guide & Resources