Inquiring Minds

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INQUIRING MINDS Inquiry-Based Learning Makes Students Take More Ownership of How They Learn

BY MA RC IA E L DR E DG E

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EST PRACTICES ARE DEFINED by those practices or methods that are both backed by proven, credible research and that consistently yield high quality results. Best practices in education hold those responsible for delivering the practices — teachers, administrators, and all those invested in a particular learning community — to a set of common standards that ultimately provide students the most effective learning environment with high quality results. Inquiry-based learning is one such practice and while it’s certainly not new, it’s gaining more traction in learning environments that are truly student centered, like at Brewster. The skills it develops in learners — problem solving, critical thinking, group collaboration — are on the short list of what Brewster has identified as “Essential Abilities” for what students need to master and bring to the table in college and professional endeavors to meet with success.

While best practices in education have long been in place at Brewster (www.brewsteracademy.org/bestpractices), they are continuously examined and enhanced when needed to ensure the focus remains on student-centeredness in learning. Inquiry-based learning strategies, which are emerging in the Brewster curriculum, are one such enhancement.

“In our efforts to continually look for ways to improve and evolve our academic program, we must ask ourselves if this is the best we can do?” explains Brewster’s Dean of Studies Peter Hess.

“Are there opportunities to better serve students if we consider the advantageous principles contained in inquiry-based learning? Can our students be something other than passengers in a car driven by their teacher to a destination? Can they have some say in — not what the destination will be — but in how they arrive at the destination? Can such a process set students up to be curious seekers of knowledge that makes them eager to receive instruction from their teachers?”

WHAT IS INQUIRY-BASED LEARNING? Inquiry-based learning (IBL) allows students to take even further ownership of their learning by constructing meaning of the subject content by bringing in their own experiences, knowledge, and past histories in education, asserts Tom Owen, chair of Brewster’s science department and one of the teachers taking a lead role in implementing IBL. “It’s very question driven, so instead of the centeredness of the classroom being

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driven by the teacher, the student has a greater responsibility for the learning process. It’s an approach where students construct their own meaning of some sort of phenomenon occurring in the curriculum, and it’s in contrast to more traditional teaching methods, which are direct transmission models where teachers profess their own knowledge to the students.”

Owen continues, “The idea is to flip that so the teacher is now the facilitator

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and the students are really constructing their own knowledge of the subject matter. Students are figuring out the right questions to get to the answers. And that’s really the basis of what inquiry is.”

WHY NOW AT BREWSTER? This teaching method has been around for decades, and its efficacy is well known in the literature, Owen says. “So the question is, why is it not

implemented widespread? I think the answer is because it’s hard. It’s hard to do in most other learning environments.

“We are in an optimal place here at Brewster. We have the support of the administration, the flexibility in our curriculum to make changes like this, and best of all it fits in so nicely with what Brewster is trying to accomplish, which is to create a community of engaged,

life-long learners. We have PBL [project-based learning]. We have the Essential Abilities. Inquiry is all of that. It’s not just learning the content. It’s about the learning process.

It’s about analyzing data. It’s about presenting data in a logical fashion and then revisiting it and looking at possible ways of making it better and learning more. It’s this constant learning cycle and that fits in so beautifully with Brewster’s mission.”

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“ The idea is to flip that so the teacher is now the facilitator and the students are really constructing their own knowledge of the subject matter.”

INQUIRY-BASED VS. PROJECT-BASED LEARNING All students participate in a yearend project period where groups of one to four students select a guiding question of their choice, research the topic or design a solution, develop a presentation, and share their findings in an engaging presentation delivered to their team of students, faculty, and administrators.

In comparison, inquiry-based learning is part of an ongoing learning cycle. “The idea is not to stop after one thing,” says Owen. “When we did the egg lab [see Inquiry-based Osmosis and Diffusion on page 33] it was a progression of steps to gain an understanding of a certain scientific principle. Whereas project based-learning is a learning experience anchored in an isolated project,” Owen explains.

“Yet there are lots of overlapping skills involved in both, which is why inquiry is a nice fit for Brewster. The students learn and use the Essential Abilities rubric that we have here, and those skills transfer right into the project-based learning period.”

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT? Both Owen’s experience working with students and studies through his doctoral coursework attest to his belief that inquiry-based learning increases student interest and motivation while nearly leveling the playing field between a span of student abilities, an expectation of Brewster’s educational

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33 approach. “According to research, when IBL is implemented in classrooms, it has the ability to level the playing field in terms of content acquisition and understanding between accelerated students and those who are standard and foundational. Some researchers suggest that it is due to the reflective/cyclical nature of IBL, and the social interactions involved in the learning process if IBL is done correctly,” he says. “All of this is of course especially important in Brewster’s inclusive classrooms.”

According to constructivist learning principles, students learn better when they bring in their own background knowledge to try and make sense of material. “Studies show that kids will actually learn better if they are able to construct their own knowledge, which leads to better retention, and then ideally they will be able to transfer that knowledge to different contexts and across disciplines,” Owen says.

“From a cognitive perspective, kids learn best when they construct their own knowledge rather than when teachers direct it,” he added.

A significant body of research points to the positive effects of inquiry approaches. In fact, a meta-analysis of 105 research studies, published in the Journal of Research in Science in 1983, found substantial impact for student learning in favor of an inquiry-based approach in science classrooms.

A review of the literature on this meta-analysis by Alan Colburn, professor of science education at California State University, Long Beach, who has spent decades researching inquiry-based teaching in science, concluded in a 2008 paper “that inquiry-based instruction was equal or superior to other instructional modes for students producing higher scores on content achievement tests.” Colburn also pointed out that students learn observable ideas better through

INQUIRY-BASED

OSMOSIS + DIFFUSION Here is a simple example of inquiry-based learning in a sophomore biology class. The objective of the lesson was to teach both osmosis and diffusion and scientific experimental design and data analysis, how to communicate findings, and then produce a video lab report in an iMovie.

WELCOME BACK To introduce the lesson, Owen, along with science Science department chair Tom teacher Michelle Rafalowski-Houseman, began by introducOwen was a science teacher at ing the phenomena that occur when decalcifying an egg.

Brewster from 2008–2010 before Students first observed what happened to an egg after it was leaving to pursue a doctoral degree immersed in vinegar; eventually the egg was left without a in mathematics, science, and learnshell, with just a fine, translucent membrane. “The students ing technologies at the University of could see into the egg; they could see the yolk. That’s an Massachusetts, Amherst. Although attention grabber right there,” Owen shared. he was working in education, Next, with no background information, they observed teaching and mentoring graduate what happened to the decalcified egg when immersed in students, he missed the classdifferent solutions; patterns were revealed. “What they are room, especially at the secondary doing at this point is they are looking at something that is level, and was eager to share familiar to them, there is this engagement because it’s this newly obtained experiences and attention-grabbing thing, and they are observing a phenomknowledge in a supportive enon. They are making sense of the phenomenon; we are not teaching and learnteaching them, we are not telling them ‘if you put it in here ing environment. and here, here’s what happens.’ They are figuring this out.”

Although he had With this experiential assignment added to their toolbox, other teaching offers, subsequent lessons will be grounded in this phenomenon his decision to return that they have observed and made sense of. to Brewster was both “What we do now, after they have had time to explore personal and professional. On the this, is we talk and introduce some of the content on osmosis personal side, the Owens family has and diffusion,” Owen noted. “By this point some of the condoubled since he and wife Rebecca tent is anchored to the decalcification experiment that they left; they now have two daughters have observed and already processed. We didn’t introduce and they wanted to raise them in an the associated vocabulary at that first step but now that area that they love. Professionally, they have seen the phenomenon and worked with it, stuOwen says, “I love the type of students attach that content knowledge, including vocabulary, dents we serve at Brewster. These to the lesson.” are students who are hard working Students begin to understand the principles and attach the and of great character, which once abstract concept to a tangible outcome. This is where makes my job here unbelievably the inquiry level increases. To continue the lesson, students enjoyable. I also wanted to work at were next asked a simple question: how would your cells be a place that was in alignment with affected by coming in contact with your favorite beverage? my educational philosophy and With no instruction, they then designed their own experisupports my teaching style. I have ment to answer the question. Using artificial cells, previously always felt supported in that regard created by the students, they went to work observing what here at Brewster.” Recently, Owen’s happens to those cells from an osmotic perspective when dissertation work was accepted to immersed in their favorite beverages. present at the Learning Disability “Ultimately the experiments looked quite similar to the Association Conference in Florida in way that we [Owen and Rafalowski-Houseman] would have February 2016. set them up but a few looked quite different.

Most students found that the cells did lose mass, and they could explain why logically, without us having to prompt them, because they were able to make that transfer of the egg experience to their own experiment. The engagement level was very high. They were very interested because it was unknown. It was novel to them, and they knew that we didn’t have the answers.”

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“ Of course the teacher plays a major role in guiding the students in the right directions, but in IBL, students truly take control of the learning process.”

inquiry-based approaches rather than ideas considered theoretical.

He also noted that student achievement tends to be higher when a more guided ‘learning cycle’ form of inquiry is employed.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR TEACHERS? “I believe the teachers who excel at facilitating IBL are either experienced teachers or teachers who have extensive content knowledge.

If a teacher doesn't have to focus on learning the content to teach, time is freed up to focus on the pedagogy.

“It can still be challenging for teachers, though, simply because we love our disciplines so much that it’s hard for us to take a back seat to the learning process. It’s difficult to sit back and relinquish control of the

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content, as the students discover and construct an understanding of concepts on their own. Of course the teacher plays a major role in guiding the students in the right directions, but in IBL, students truly take control of the learning process.

“I feel very fortunate to be working at a school that not just allows it but encourages teachers to explore inquiry, because not a lot of places will do that,” Owen says.

According to Hess, for inquiry to be effective it requires significant intellectual investment on the part of teachers to design learning tasks that are connected to the disciplines, to their students’ lives, and to the world, while focused toward clear and achievable learning targets. “Students are still expected to demonstrate certain skills and knowledge as a

result of their academic experiences.

Inquiry approaches will just help us achieve those objectives more deeply and successfully,” he explains.

"While inquiry learning has its origins in science education, it has applications to all disciplines. Department heads have been actively researching how inquiry has been shown to play a role in their disciplines with promising results. Once people understand the goals that inquiry-based learning is trying to accomplish, the possibilities for using it to engage students more deeply in a topic are limitless and exciting," Hess adds.

35 WHAT STUDENTS SAY For more than two decades, Brewster students have been formally evaluating their teachers (as well as coaches and community life parents) as a way to ensure authentic assessment regarding their whole school experience. In reviewing student surveys, Owen gets high marks in all categories with comments such as: “My biology class has a positive and curious learning environment.”

“I feel as though I am always interested in what’s going on. I learn best with hands on stuff.”

“I really love the way you teach Bio. Science has always been one of the toughest subjects for me to get into but you’ve made it fun for me.”

“He keeps the class focused and attentive and makes science interesting.”

“I can’t explain how much I love this class with the amount of space given.

I entered this class knowing that I was extremely passionate about it and I leave class every day even more interested in it than when I entered. …

It’s nearly impossible to get distracted in his class.”

He attributes this positive feedback to the amount of time dedicated to inquiry-based learning.

And, full disclosure, he did not offer up these specific comments beyond the mention that the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. But a quick review of surveys confirmed such feedback.

Owen is a firm believer in the self-determination theory and that individuals are motivated to do certain activities based on the psychological needs of competence, relatedness, and autonomy. Inquiry-based learning provides a foundation for all three, he says. “Inquiry provides a foundation for students to be autonomous in their learning; relatedness

because we’ve scaffolded some of the learning so they can relate to the content; and competence is what they are building and what they see emerging within themselves so they are highly motivated to go through the learning process.”

SCHOOL WIDE: WHERE WE ARE As a whole school, Brewster is working toward a common framework that will allow all departments to implement an inquiry-based approach with integrity. While there are numerous frameworks for implementing inquiry in the classroom and all disciplines at Brewster have some sort of framework in place, the teacher and learning team, along with department heads, are working toward aligning them directly with each other.

“Brewster demands intentionality in what we do. We don’t want to implement something that doesn’t have the empirical background to support what goes on in our classrooms. If there is no single framework that exists for all disciplines, we want to be very careful about what we implement so that we ensure that it is effective for the students,” Owen says.

“Brewster is able to accomplish such a shift in its pedagogical thinking much more effectively and efficiently than most schools,” Hess adds, explaining that there are some significant programmatic reasons for this.

“Brewster’s teachers are used to working in an environment where there is a school-wide implementation of teaching practices; teachers are comfortable using a common language and having the same philosophical approach to working with students; and our summer training institute helps ensure all faculty, new or experienced, develop this common understanding.”

Brewster has a very collegial faculty where collaboration is expected,

Hess says. “The team structure supports and promotes this collegial atmosphere where teachers are working together as part of a professional learning community. A culture of research supported practices and information about effective educational strategies permeate these small communities. This unified mindset makes evolutionary change a more smooth and complete prospect than most schools are in position to accomplish.” / BA / For a more in-depth look at inquiry-based learning at Brewster, we encourage you to read the Academy’s white paper (www.brewsteracademy.org/ inquirylearning).

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