Inquiry-based

Learning
(This section is condensed and adapted from Alberta Learning, Focus on Inquiry: A Teacher’s Guide to
Implementing Inquiry-based Learning [Edmonton, AB: Alberta Learning, 2004]).

Benefits of Research suggests that using inquiry-based learning with

students can help them become more creative, more positive
Inquiry-based and more independent.1 Inquiry-based learning provides
Learning opportunities for students to:
• develop skills they will need all their lives
• learn to cope with problems that may not have clear
solutions
• deal with changes and challenges to understandings
• shape their search for solutions, now and in the future.

The Inquiry Model Using an inquiry model helps students to internalize a process
for inquiry that is transferable to everyday life situations. The
model presented here uses a puzzle metaphor to help students
relate inquiry-based learning to their lives outside school.

Planning
Identify a topic area for inquiry
Identify possible information sources
Identify audience and presentation format
Establish evaluation criteria
Evaluating Outline a plan for inquiry
Evaluate the product Retrieving
Evaluate the inquiry Develop an information
process and inquiry plan retrieval plan
Review and revise personal Locate and collect resources
inquiry model Select relevant information
Transfer learning to new Evaluate information
situations/beyond school Review and revise the plan for
inquiry

Sharing
Communicate with the audience Processing
Present new understandings Establish a focus for inquiry
Demonstrate appropriate Choose pertinent information
audience behaviour Creating Record information
Organize information Make connections and
Create a product inferences
Think about the audience Review and
Revise and edit revise the
Review and revise the plan for inquiry plan for
inquiry

1. Kühne (1995).

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Phases of the Reflecting on the Process
Reflecting on the process is integral to all phases in the Inquiry
Inquiry Model Model—Planning, Retrieving, Processing, Creating, Sharing and
Evaluating. Reflection should address both the affective and
cognitive elements associated with metacognition.

Planning
Planning is the most important phase of the whole process.
Students should understand that the underlying purpose of
inquiry-based learning projects is to develop their “learning to
learn” skills. Inquiry-based learning begins with the inquirers’
interest in or curiosity about a topic—the puzzle that needs to be
solved. At this phase of the inquiry process students often
experience a sense of optimism about the tasks ahead.

Retrieving
In this phase, students think about the information they have
and the information they want. They may need to spend
considerable time exploring and thinking about the information
they find before they come to a “focus” for their inquiry. This
pre-focus phase is at first enjoyable for students, as they
actively search for information related to their topic. But as the
number of resources they find increases, students may have
difficulty finding data specific to their inquiry or handling the
irrelevant data they find. Since many students are set in what
they want to find out, they may “tune out,” stop searching or
become frustrated at this point in the process.

Teachers can help students through this phase by emphasizing

that feelings of frustration are normal, and by teaching them
skills and strategies for selecting relevant information and for
adjusting and modifying inquiries.

Processing
This phase begins when the student has found a focus for the
inquiry—an aspect of the topic area that the student decides to
investigate. Coming to a focus can be very difficult for students,
as it involves more than just narrowing the topic; it involves
coming to an authentic question, a personal perspective or a
compelling thesis statement.

Students usually experience a sense of relief and elation when

they have established a focus for their inquiry. Even so,
choosing pertinent information from resources is often a difficult
task: there may be too little information or too much information,
or the information may be too superficial or too in-depth for the
students. Often students will find information that is confusing or
contradictory, and may feel overwhelmed.

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 Creating
The creating phase involves organizing the information, putting
it into one’s own words and creating a presentation format.
Students often feel more confident at this phase and may want
to include all of their new learning in their product, resulting in
too much information. Teachers should help students to stay
focused in their presentation.

Sharing
If students have been given enough support throughout the
inquiry process, they are usually proud of their product and
eager to share it, regardless of the format or audience. They
may feel a bit nervous about presenting something in which they
take such ownership, and they may feel anxious that others may
not understand or appreciate their efforts. Nevertheless, they
generally feel that they have done well on this assignment.

Evaluating
When a research project is complete, students generally feel
relieved, happy and excited about their new skills and
understandings. In order to make sense of the inquiry process,
they need to evaluate their inquiry process and product,
understand and question the assessment criteria their teacher
has used, reflect on teacher feedback, and share their feelings
about the process.

Students should be able to articulate the importance of this kind

of work for developing their “learning to learn” skills, and to see
the connections between their inquiry work done in school and
work or activities done outside of school. They should also be
able to reflect on how their experience has influenced their
personal inquiry model and on what they have learned about
themselves as inquirers.

Inquiry Across the Alberta programs of study present a variety of inquiry models.
While terms and processes may vary, the basic concepts of
Curriculum inquiry-based learning emphasized in this document are
included in all programs of study. This document emphasizes
common aspects or elements in order to support an integrated,
cross-disciplinary approach to inquiry; however, teachers need
to use the latest version of curriculum documents to ensure that
they have the fullest and most current information in relation to
the inquiry-based outcomes for each program of studies.

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Facilitating Teachers and administrators may have a variety of questions as
they consider how to implement inquiry-based learning. For
Inquiry-based example:
Learning • When is inquiry-based learning worth doing?
• Will inquiry-based learning help me meet curriculum
standards?
• Will inquiry-based learning increase my students’ ability to
read, write and reason?
• Will inquiry-based learning improve my students’ test
scores?
• If I provide time for students to spend on inquiry-based
learning, what do I remove from my program? How do I
make time?
• How do I manage an inquiry-based learning activity by
myself?
• Which strategies are the most effective in teaching
inquiry-based learning?
• What are some obstacles I may need to overcome to
implement inquiry-based learning?

Consider the following sample strategies for facilitating effective

inquiry-based learning. Note that some of these tasks may also
be performed by a teacher–librarian.
• Focus on real-life problems in the context of the curriculum
or community. For teacher-directed projects, provide
students with a choice of topics that are likely to be of
personal interest. For student-directed projects, provide
curriculum-related themes and allow students to generate
their own topic questions.
• Approach inquiry with enthusiasm and excitement.
• Admit that inquiry involves the unexpected for you and for
students.
• Establish a collaborative relationship with students and
teacher–librarian. Interact with students frequently and
actively.
• Model the behaviours and language of the inquiry process in
your instruction.
• Post the Inquiry Model in your classroom and the school
library.
• Set a specific time for inquiry-based learning.
• Provide students with time during class to plan and reflect
on the steps required to complete their inquiries.
• Individualize teaching. Students with special needs and
students who lack inquiry-related skills may need extra
assistance or adaptations at various stages of the process.
• Provide information and background to motivate students.

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 • Facilitate the process by discussing, clarifying, supporting
and monitoring as students gather and present information.
Motivate students to locate, analyze and use information;
and assist students to clarify thinking through questioning,
paraphrasing and talking through tasks.
• Facilitate and model questioning behaviours (e.g., providing
opportunities for students to develop and ask questions).
• Use technology to advance inquiry by doing what would
otherwise be impossible.
• Help students understand that the information they find,
whether in a library book, in a newspaper or on an Internet
site, was created by people with particular beliefs and
purposes and that information is not just objective facts.
• Teach students how to compare, contrast and synthesize
data, as well as skills and strategies for focusing their
project.
• Teach students audience appreciation skills and strategies.
• Reflect on and modify the process as necessary to make it
really count.
• Assess students’ progress in content and process areas.
Seek students’ input in developing assessment criteria for
the research product and process.

Designing Inquiry Students learn inquiry skills, strategies and processes more
readily when inquiry-based learning activities are:
Activities • integrated with curriculum
• taught with a focus on developing lifelong learners and
critical thinkers
• viewed by students as relevant to their needs
• related to students’ past experiences
• shared through cooperative learning.
Well-designed inquiry-based learning projects are a means by
which many curricular outcomes can be accomplished by
students each year. Planning is the key to success for teachers
who develop the lesson plans for the inquiry activity, as well as
for students who are involved in the inquiry. Planning successful
inquiry-based learning activities requires taking time to think
through the process.
Inquiry-based learning requires many skills and strategies and a
wide range of resources from beyond the school library and
classroom. It is important that teachers select a curriculum
theme that is worthy of the time and effort involved and that will
be interesting to students for more than a short-term period.
Early selection of a theme and inquiry activity will give teachers
the time to build the students’ background knowledge, to
develop the inquiry skills and strategies that students will need,
and to acquire or add to the required resources. Consider the
following process for developing inquiry-based learning
activities.
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 Step 1: Begin planning
If there is a school-wide plan for integrating inquiry-based
learning activities, consult this plan first. School plans vary the
content areas from year to year, and ensure that students are
learning, practising and improving their inquiry skills as they
progress through the grades. If your school has not yet
developed a school-wide plan, begin with the programs of study,
which all have inquiry-based outcomes, and select an area that
will interest both you and your students.
Step 2: Work with others
The ideal situation for developing an inquiry unit occurs when
team teaching or cooperative planning occurs between a
teacher–librarian and teacher or between two or more teachers
(Alberta Education, 1990, pp. 28–29).
The following are some possibilities for teams:
• Work with another teacher or all teachers in a particular
grade to develop and team teach the inquiry unit. In this
team-planning approach, each teacher brings special talents
that can be used. The team approach also divides the
labour and lightens the workload. After the unit planning is
complete, each teacher adapts the unit to the needs of his
or her students.
• Work with a teacher–librarian to plan inquiry-based learning
units together. The teacher–librarian brings to the activity
expertise in inquiry-based learning, resource selection, Web
site selection and evaluation, and, most importantly,
strategies for integrating information literacy skills into the
inquiry.
• If no teacher–partners are available, discuss your inquiry
with the library technician or assistant and ask for support to
locate a variety of print and nonprint resources.
Step 3: Engage students
• Decide which unit provides the best opportunities for
inquiry-based learning.
• Begin with the program of studies and your yearly plan.
• Look for entry points, as well as topics that will engage
students’ interests and involve a problem or issue.
• Choose a curriculum-based theme for which students bring
a strong background of experience or knowledge, or for
which background knowledge will be developed prior to the
inquiry.
• Consider if the theme presents opportunities to engage all
students in your class, including male and female students,
the highly motivated and those who require a lot of
encouragement.
• Consider that a complex topic may require additional
guidance for students so that they realize the importance of
the issue.

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 • Think about resources in your school and community. Keep
in mind that some themes popular with students in
Knowledge and Employability courses may not have
resources available at the appropriate reading level.
Step 4: Determine the scope
• Decide on the scope and end product of the inquiry activity.
• If teaching inquiry-based learning for the first time, limit the
scope of the project in terms of time, topic selection and end
product. Focus on ensuring student success.
• Consider how many product formats you are willing to teach
or accept.
• Plan for students to share information in a way that is simple
or familiar to them.
Step 5: Identify resources
• Select appropriate resources and plan for their use. The
inquiry activity may have to be redefined at this point to take
into account available resources.
• Choose resources in different formats (e.g., print, nonprint,
digital, multimedia) and at different reading and literacy
levels.
• Use a station approach in the classroom or library if
resources are very limited.
• Arrange or confirm access to resources.
• Schedule time for students to browse through resources in
the school library or classroom before the inquiry begins so
that they become comfortable with resources other than
textbooks.
Step 6: Create a timeline
• Determine the order in which the unit and inquiry activity will
be taught.
• Plan the inquiry project for the mid-point to the end of a unit,
once students have learned background knowledge on the
theme and had a chance to think about questions of
particular interest to them.
• Let students know in advance when they will start an inquiry
activity—this allows students to think about topics, talk to
friends and family about the topic, and gather resources in
advance. It may also help with choosing and narrowing the
topic, and in identifying any controversial issues (Alberta
Learning, 2004, pp. 82–83).
Step 7: Select inquiry and ICT skills
• Determine which inquiry and ICT skills (if appropriate) will be
stressed throughout the inquiry and which will be taught
prior to the inquiry activity.
• Assess students’ competencies in a variety of inquiry skills.
Students can help identify what skills they know and what
skills require instruction.

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 • Analyze what inquiry skills will be required by a project and
what to teach in advance.
• Limit the number of skills taught within an inquiry activity.

Step 8: Plan monitoring and assessment

• Plan in advance for the monitoring and assessment of the
inquiry process and the final product. Planning for
assessment provides the foundation for thinking about what
students already know, what they need to know, what
instructional emphases will be given and what students will
be expected to learn through the inquiry activity.
• Determine how you will monitor and assess student
progress in both content and process on an ongoing basis.
• Determine how you will make students aware of the
monitoring and assessment (both formative and summative)
requirements.
• Plan for student self-evaluation.
• Plan for reflecting on the process.
• Plan for evaluating and revising the assignment at the end
of the process.
• Determine how you will know if the process has been
successful.
Step 9: Begin the inquiry
• Introduce the inquiry activity to the class as an integral part
of classroom studies.
• Keep a list of questions, issues and problems that arise
during the unit for further investigation.
• Spread the inquiry activity throughout the unit so that
students have time to think about a topic of interest, talk to
parents and other family members, and find a focus.
Step 10: Determine what worked
During and after the inquiry activity, record those strategies that
were most and least effective.

Assessing Inquiry Teachers need to plan for diagnostic, formative and summative
assessment when designing inquiry activities.

• Diagnostic assessment is used to find out which inquiry

skills and strategies students know and can use, and then to
build on these strengths during the inquiry. Areas of difficulty
can be targeted for planned instruction during the inquiry
activity. Diagnostic assessment also helps teachers
recognize how to differentiate instruction for individual
students in a class.

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 • Formative assessment is critical in inquiry activities.
Ongoing, formative assessment helps teachers to identify
and monitor students’ development of skills and strategies
for planning, retrieving, processing, creating and reflecting
during the inquiry activity. This ongoing assessment allows
teachers to modify instruction, adapt the inquiry activity and
support students with special instructional needs.

• Summative assessment is carried out at the end of the

inquiry activity to provide information to students and
parents about progress and achievement on the inquiry
activity. Summative assessment assesses both the content
and the process of the inquiry, and helps the teacher and
the students plan for further inquiries.

Planning for assessment requires that teachers consider the

purposes for assessment in the inquiry activity, and then choose
appropriate strategies for each of the three types of
assessment. See Assessment for possible strategies.

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Differentiating Instruction for Inquiry-based Learning Activities
The developmental level and individual abilities of the students will have an impact on the
nature of an inquiry-based learning activity, the end product and how it is shared. Consider the
following strategies for students with limited, moderate and advanced experience with
inquiry-based learning. For all students, appropriate positive feedback and support is necessary.

For students with limited For students with more For students who are
inquiry experience inquiry experience advanced inquirers
Provide concrete, Allow students to select, with Allow students to select
pre-selected topics for guidance, issues-based specific topics (e.g., issues-
students to choose from; or topics (and perspectives on based, cultural, historical,
allow students to select the topics) within a general comparative, informative,
specific topics, with guidance, curriculum theme selected by biographical) within
within a general curriculum the teacher. parameters set by the
theme selected by the teacher. Have students
Topic

teacher. support a position for thesis-

based inquiry.
Provide background Provide opportunities for Provide opportunities for
knowledge for students to students to build on their students to build on their
work from, or encourage general background general background
students to work their own understandings of the theme. understandings of their topic.
experiences, to build basic
understandings of the theme.
Allow students to talk to Allow students to work with Allow students to work with
with Others

others, using appropriate others to compare others to compare

Working

protocol, to gather information understandings of and understandings of and

about their topic. sensitivities to the topic. sensitivities to the topic.

Provide carefully selected Help students develop and Help students develop and
resources, including Internet implement a plan for finding implement a plan for finding
sites, for students. Encourage and evaluating information. and evaluating information
and support additional from a variety of sources.
student research.
Teach basic skills for locating Reinforce and expand skills Review skills for locating
information through methods for locating information information through methods
such as online library through methods such as such as online library
Sources

catalogues, subject online library catalogues, catalogues, subject

directories, keyword subject directories, keyword directories, keyword
searches, tables of contents searches, tables of contents searches, tables of contents
and indexes. Provide specific and indexes. Provide guided and indexes, as necessary.
strategies for using Internet instruction for using Internet Provide guided instruction for
search engines. for research. using Internet for research.
Teach interviewing skills that Reinforce and expand skills
consider the appropriate for conducting interviews in
protocol for each situation. an appropriate and ethical
manner (e.g., consideration of
privacy and confidentiality).

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 For students with limited For students with more For students who are
inquiry experience inquiry experience advanced inquirers
Teach skills for reading Teach specific skills for Teach specific skills for
simple informational texts. reading more complex reading and evaluating
informational texts. complex informational texts,
Information

as needed.
Teach note-taking skills and Teach note-taking skills, Help students to select the
provide a graphic organizer including highlighting most appropriate note-taking
for recording information. techniques, and provide a strategies for recording
choice of graphic organizers information in particular
or other formats for students situations.
to record information.
Provide specific guidelines for Provide specific guidelines for Students create a report or
students to create a basic students to create a basic presentation based on
report or presentation. report or presentation, but guidelines developed in the
encourage students to be planning phase and in
creative in their product. response to the needs and
interests of the intended
audience.
Report

Encourage students to begin Encourage students to use Encourage students to use

using technology to locate, technology appropriately to technology appropriately and
organize and create enhance their presentations creatively to enhance their
presentations. and reports. presentations and reports.
Have students share their Have students share their Have students share their
final report/project with small final report/project with small final report/project with larger
groups within the classroom groups, other classes and/or groups, other classes, family
and/or with family. family. and/or the community.
Identify and share evaluation Identify and share evaluation Identify and share evaluation
criteria for the process and criteria for the process and criteria for the process and
the product, and ensure that the product, and ensure that the product, and ensure that
students understand this students understand this students understand this
criteria. criteria. criteria.
Evaluation

Involve students in setting Involve students in setting Involve students in setting

evaluation criteria for the evaluation criteria for the evaluation criteria for the
process and the product. process and the product. process and the product.
Teach and provide Teach and provide Provide opportunities to
opportunities to practise opportunities to practise practise self-evaluation and
appropriate peer-evaluation appropriate self-evaluation peer-evaluation of the final
skills. and peer-evaluation skills. product and the inquiry
process.
Monitor progress at the end Monitor progress at the end Monitor progress at the end
of each class. of each class. of each class.
Monitoring

Create time for students to Teach specific strategies to Teach specific strategies to
talk about their feelings and help students monitor and help students monitor and
progress each class. adapt their own inquiry skills adapt their own inquiry skills
and strategies during the and strategies during the
process. process.

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