1. Inquiry Learning
David Geelan
University of Queensland

2. Inquiry is not constructivism, although it is
a teaching-learning approach that is
consistent with constructivist theories
about knowing and learning.

3. Inquiry can be open-entry (starts with a
broad question but ends up with the
development of a pre-planned scientific
concept, for example) or open-ended
(inquiry into a social or technological
question where each student ends up with
a different answer).

4. Inquiry is about asking questions in class.
It’s about what kinds of questions are asked
(just factual recall, or synthesis and
application, or life-application, or open-
entry/ended inquiry questions). It’s also
about who asks the questions – the teacher
or the students? And even if the teacher
asks the question, do the students come to
‘own’ it during the inquiry?

5. Inquiry does not mean that the teacher’s
role disappears or is minimised… the
teacher is actively involved in planning for
inquiry and in facilitating and supporting
the students’ activities at every stage.

6. Students can develop new concepts (for
them) in the process of inquiry, but they
are unlikely to arrive at the same
vocabulary and conventions of
communication that scientists use, so the
teacher has an important role in
‘translating’ student concepts into
scientific language, and in teaching
scientific language.

7. Inquiry can include library and web
searches, but should not be limited to
these. Considering that scientific concepts
are tested (in experiments) against the
real world, inquiry lessons that include
real experiments are likely to be very
powerful.

8.  An important part of the teacher’s role is
managing students’ engagement and
attention.
 A small amount of frustration can be
helpful if it is encouraging students to
explore and find ways to satisfy their
curiosity, but too much frustration can
lead students to give up.
 In that situation it’s important for the
teacher to come in with a hint or
suggestion to allow some progress to be
made and students to feel successful.