Inquiry is an approach to teaching and learning regardless of whether this teaching is done within a unit of inquiry or a one-off lesson.
An inquiry teacher has a view of their role as a teacher that impacts on what they say, do and think about everything that happens in the classroom. The teacher's mindset is absolutely critical to the successful implementation of inquiry in the classroom. It is far more significant than any planner, scope and sequence, framework, program or set of strategies. This mindset goes to how we think about the act of teaching itself.
Teachers with an inquiry mindset generally see learning as a two-way process and view students as capable and curious. The expectation that accompanies this is that students can (and should) actively investigate questions, problems and challenges – coming to both expected and unexpected conclusions.
> Teachers tell me time and time again that when they remain open in this way, they meet their intentions by travelling down much more engaging and meaningful Pathways.
This means being open minded and managing a degree of uncertainty while keeping the big picture in mind. Primary teachers have long used the phrase 'gradual release of responsibility' in relation to teaching reading. An inquiry-oriented teacher applies this same principle across the Day. [⇒A Day Life]
In the wise words of Maria Montessori, our task is to help students 'learn to do it for themselves'. How fascinating to have that same idea echoed almost a century later by Sugata Mitra (2010), whose famous 'hole in the wall' experiments remind us how much students can learn and teach each other if they are motivated by Curiosity and given the space and time to learn. Our teaching reflects our mindset, but using strategies and changing what we do can also change how we think and feel.
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MURDOCH, Kath, 2015. The power of inquiry. Seastar Education, p. 17.
Choose to cultivate a curious attitude. Great questions frame and provoke, opening us to new pathways. Many successful methods have questions at their core, such as: "What's at the heart of the matter?" and "If you were czar, what would you do?" So what's the most powerful question we could ask right now?