INQUIRY-BASEDTEACHING AND

LEARNING ACROSSDISCIPLINES

Comparative Theory

and Practice in Schools

Gillian KidmanNiranjan Casinader

Inquiry-Based Teaching and Learningacross Disciplines

Gillian Kidman • Niranjan Casinader

Inquiry-BasedTeaching and Learning

across Disciplines

Comparative Theory and Practice in Schools

Gillian KidmanMonash UniversityClayton, VIC, Australia

Niranjan CasinaderMonash UniversityClayton, VIC, Australia

ISBN 978-1-137-53462-0 ISBN 978-1-137-53463-7 (eBook)DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-53463-7

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My learning and thinking has been greatly enhanced by my constantdesire to question, investigate and explore. From my earliest memories,I was encouraged to think and reflect; to question and reflect—to

inquire. This book is dedicated to the memory of my parents (Hubertusand Claire Vos)—my earliest teachers. You were with me at the start

of this book—I dedicate the finished product to you.Gillian Kidman

My love of inquiry, with its accompanying craving forexploration and delving into the new and unknown,came out of a childhood consumed by a thirst for

knowledge: adventure in open spaces, intertwined withimagination and fired by an obsession with creating newworlds out of Lego, wood and Meccano. The people whoencouraged and nurtured that mix with a steadfastconviction that their children develop their own minds

were my parents, Ranji Casinader and RomanyWright. To them, and all the teachers who fed my

hunger (Valé Clifford Gould, Michael Streatfield andChris Cooper), this book is dedicated.

Niranjan Casinader

FOREWORD

Inquiry has become the standard for educational policy, curriculum, andpractice. This has taken decades if not a century to happen, yet there oftenremains resistance to its adoption. However, a quick look at internationalcomparisons of educational accomplishment reveals that, with few excep-tions, top-performing jurisdictions have implemented inquiry-based edu-cation. Inquiry is not easy for policy makers, curriculum designers,educational administrators, teachers, or learners. It requires intensiveknowledge of pedagogy and knowledge creation within and across disci-plines, and development of children’s abilities, concepts, motivation, andautonomy. Following an overview of the origins of inquiry-based instruc-tion, this concise and fascinating book shines three laser-like beams onimportant challenges regarding inquiry within education.

The first beam highlights curriculum, notably the general course ofstudy. This is a rarely treated approach. While lauding the commitment toinquiry-based curriculum, the volume identifies examples of alignment andmisalignment in how inquiry is defined and reinterpreted according toseveral contexts including culture, politics, and discipline or domain.

The second beam illuminates Australia’s relatively new national cur-riculum within a federal context. This is highly relevant for Australianeducators, but readers in other countries should not be deterred by thisspecificity. Similar quicksand exists everywhere. Although this book doesnot drill down to specific lessons and pedagogy, it does highlight universalcurricular issues that impact what happens in classrooms.

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Third, the authors specifically focus on science, geography and history.Again, there are implications for all subjects. Science is not a unified field;biologists and astrophysicists ask different questions, seek different data asevidence, yet together share an inquiry model in which questions precededata, and that values confirmation, prediction, and refutation. Inquiry ingeography (especially social geography) and history begin with data andfavour explanations. Nevertheless, geographical and historical data aredifferent. The authors provide several related examples of alignment andmisalignment between the broad intentions and their expression in thecurriculum.

In its journey across inquiry in parts of the Australian curriculum, thebook raises numerous provocative ideas that educators, in general, shouldponder. Examples include:

• Inquiry reinforces an approach to learning that has strong communityqualities and that challenges culturally-driven notions of educationalsuccess as an individual accomplishment. This impacts what we mean,for example, by evaluation and indicators of success.

• Experience in discipline-based ways of knowing is foundational topromoting student-generated inquiry questions. General inquiryprocesses (e.g. asking questions, collecting evidence) are insufficientfor students to take over the role of question-asking from teachers(this fits Jerome Bruner’s proposal that a learner must play the role ofa discipline expert, at an appropriate level, to best learn it).

• Overemphasis on the process of inquiry—creating algorithms orrecipes—can pre-empt curiosity, thinking about what questions areworth asking. Formulaic approaches to inquiry are commonplace notonly within the disciplines, but also in how many teachers are edu-cated to understand, do, and teach inquiry.

• Field experiences, learning outside the physical classroom, are valu-able for experiencing “the unusual” and fostering curiosity. However,fieldwork is defined differently across subject domains, and opportu-nities to use these experiences to look at phenomena as a scientist,geographer, historian, musician, poet, philosopher, mining engineer,mathematician, speaker of another language with different words forthings we perceive, or a Martian—are insufficiently frequently avail-able to learners.

viii FOREWORD

The authors have been close scholarly observers of the development ofinquiry in Australian schools. We can think of this book as a case study withlessons to be shared well beyond its clearly articulated boundaries. It is auseful addition to scholarship on inquiry and a practical guide to makingimprovements and avoiding pitfalls in designing inquiry-driven curricula.

Bruce M. ShoreMcGill University

Montreal, QC, Canada

Reference

Kidman, G., & Casinader, N. (expected in 2017). Inquiry-based teaching andlearning across disciplines: Comparative theory and practice in schools.Basingstoke, England: Palgrave Macmillan.

FOREWORD ix

MEANING BEHIND THE ROPE

This is a stylisa�on of Chap. 1 Fig 2. On the le�-hand side, the red/purple/pink strands are the classroom goals, degree of teacher direc�on, and instruc�onal approach. These become intertwined in the knot of inquiry prac�ces, resul�ng in inquiry literacy true to the disciplines of the inquiry (in our case, Science, Geography, and History).

Discipline-Specific inquiry literacy− Scien�fic inquiry literacy− Geographical inquiry literacy− Historical inquiry literacy

Domain-general inquiry frameworks− Classroom goals− Degree of teacher Direc�on− Instruc�onal approach

PREFACE

The intention of this book is to conduct a research-based study of howeducational inquiry is conceptualised in contemporary curriculum and itsimplications for teacher implementation of inquiry-based learning. Withinthe school education sector, the notion of inquiry or inquiry-based learning,has been under attack on a number of fronts in several countries over anumber of years. This has particularly been the case in the UK and Australia,where various interpretations of inquiry—based learning (IBL) have beenintroduced into national curriculum frameworks, to varying degrees ofsuccess, a theme that is explored in more depth in Chap. 1. For proponentsof a more traditional approach to teaching and learning, inquiry learning isseen to lack academic rigour and is often associated with notions of studentfreedom that encourage them to study only those areas that they areinterested in. It is often decried as devaluing more teacher-founded peda-gogy by negating direct instruction, one that results in not enough‘knowledge’ about the ‘kinds of knowledge’ that students need to know.

The prime cause of this criticism, however, is one that reflects theinadequacy of educators’ knowledge as to what inquiry actually is in theeducational context. Between the two of us, we have a total of almost70 years experience in teaching across the primary, secondary and tertiaryeducation sectors in Australia and in various international contexts. Forboth of us, the inquiry approach has been the foundation of our educa-tional work, but one driver for this book has been our independentlyderived conclusions as to the expertise of teacher practitioners in inquiry.For many educators, inquiry is a student-centred activity that is initiated by

xi

them, but with relatively little direct input in their role as teachers there-after, beyond the odd word or comment.

This lack of teacher understanding about the complexities of inquirylearning is, we argue, at the heart of expressed concerns as to the relevanceand effectiveness of inquiry-based learning. A more accurate reality is thateffective inquiry-based learning depends as much on the direct participa-tion and specific expertise of the teacher in inquiry-based teaching as itdoes on a focus on student-driven activity. This deep, embedded form ofinquiry expertise is a parameter that is often lost or ignored when teacherpractitioners seek to implement inquiry-based learning, replaced too oftenby a surface compliance with the outward appearance of inquiry principles.

In many ways, acceptance of this approach to inquiry-based teaching canbe seen to reflect a reluctance to take on the inherent uncertainty ofinquiry-based teaching, as it is not always possible to predict where thestudents might wish to take the investigation. Both of us have experiencedworking with colleagues in all sectors who are more concerned withkeeping an orderly, predictable learning space in an abiding attempt tokeep ‘control’ of the student group. As a result, inquiry learning in themodern classroom is now often more based on the teacher’s need forclassroom management, rather than a creative unknown that might lead tomore effective and enjoyable learning on the part of the student.

The possibility that the process of inquiry might also vary betweenknowledge disciplines and reflect the conceptual bases—and thereforeconceptual variations—of the different learning areas, is also not generallyone that is acknowledged or explored, especially since many teachers areseen, through their professional accreditation, to be experts in only one ortwo different disciplines. The purpose of this book, then, is to provide amore comprehensive, nuanced and evidence-founded analysis of the natureof educational inquiry, with a particular dual focus on its interdisciplinarynature and the role of teacher in what is frequently derided as astudent-controlled activity.

Gillian KidmanNiranjan Casinader

Melbourne, AustraliaMelbourne, Australia

xii PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The production of a book such as this inevitably reflects the input of anumber of people, and we wish to acknowledge the contributions of thevery many who have been part of this journey:

• All those who agreed to be interviewed as intellectual experts in theirown disciplines (Science, Geography and History), and as generaleducational thinkers in their own right: Peter Fensham; JohnLoughran; Elida Brereton; Valé John Collins; Tony Taylor; JohnWhitehouse; Nick Hutchinson; Sue Fields; Margaret Roberts; AlaricMaude; Rosalie Triolo and Rod Fawns;

• Zoe Davies, for turning our ideas about a visual inquiry rope intoreality;

• Jeana Kriewaldt, for conducting some of the educator interviews;• Laura Alridge, our publisher at Palgrave MacMillan, and her pro-duction team, for all their support and patience;

• Professor Emeritus Bruce M. Shore, of McGill University, Canada, along-time primary thinker and researcher in inquiry, for agreeing towrite the Foreword, and his gratifying interest in the outcomes of theproject and

xiii

• our respective families and sets of friends and colleagues, for theireternal support in our professional endeavours, even if and wheninconvenient.

To all of these, we offer our grateful and deep-felt thanks.

Melbourne, Australia Gillian KidmanMarch 2017 Niranjan Casinader

xiv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CONTENTS

Part I Inquiry in Education: A Modern Perspective

1 The Unfolding of Inquiry in Education: A ResearchChronology 3

2 Managing the Reins of Inquiry: The Role of the Teacherin IBL 31

3 Differences in Perspective: The Impact of Cultureon Inquiry 47

Part II Unfolding the Stages of Inquiry

4 Inquiry in the Australian Curriculum: Commonalitiesand Dissonances 65

5 Pebbles in a Pond: The Initiation of Inquiry 75

6 Through the Looking Glass: The Conduct of Inquiry 89

7 Building the Foundation: The Use of Data and Evidencein Inquiry 105

8 The Evaluation of Inquiry: The End of the Road? 119

9 ‘Intelligence in the Wild’—Inquiry in the Field 129

Index 153

xv

ABBREVIATIONS

ACARA Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting AuthorityUNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural OrganisationVCAA Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority

xvii

LIST OF FIGURES

Chapter 1

Fig. 1 Basic hierarchy of inquiry-oriented teaching practices (modifiedfrom Wenning [2005] and Naish et al. [1987]) 6

Fig. 2 The intertwined nature of inquiry-based instruction and inquiryliteracy 7

Fig. 3 Inquiry in education: A comparative timeline 10

Chapter 2

Fig. 1 The six steps of the FPS problem solving process 34Fig. 2 The role of the teacher/coach in future problem solving: The

global issues problem solving option 37

Chapter 4

Fig. 1 Structure of the Australian Curriculum modified from McGaw(2014) 69

Chapter 5

Fig. 1 A learning model: initiating inquiry 77Fig. 2 Domain-specific Student-Generated Questions (SGQ) 82Fig. 3 SGQ types: a geographical bridge 84

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Chapter 6

Fig. 1 Cross-disciplinary disjunctures in inquiry: The Australian curriculum 94

Chapter 7

Fig. 1 Evidence-based decision making (modified from Gott andDuggan 2003) 108

Fig. 2 Frequency of processing and analysing actions 113

Chapter 9

Fig. 1 Science, Geography and History: inquiry sequence in the field 134

xx LIST OF FIGURES

LIST OF TABLES

Chapter 4

Table 1 Inquiry in the Australian Curriculum: a cross-disciplinarycomparison 72

Chapter 5

Table 1 Australian Curriculum: inquiry skills for the questioningsub-strands 79

Table 2 SGQ types by discipline: a comparison 83Table 3 Research-based student-generated question typologies 85

Chapter 6

Table 1 Inquiry skills in the Australian Curriculum: a disciplinarycomparison 90

Chapter 7

Table 1 Defining data and evidence 106Table 2 Australian Curriculum inquiry skills for the Science analysis

to communication sub-strands 109Table 3 Australian Curriculum inquiry skills for the HASS researching

to communication sub-strands 110

xxi