The many levels of inquiry

Abstract

Elementary teachers often struggle with how to design and implement inquiry instruction with their students. For many, just understanding what inquiry is can be difficult--let alone designing activities that support high levels of inquiry. In this article, the authors present a continuum by which to evaluate an activity's level of inquiry. Then, using a fifth-grade unit exploring sinking and floating, they describe examples of each type of inquiry from low-level structured inquiry to high-level open inquiry. (Contains 1 figure and lists 1 online resource.) (http://www.nsta.org/publications/browse_journals.aspx?action=issue&thetype=all&id=10.2505/3/sc08_046_02)