As Kath Murdoch says in her book The Power of Inquiry, inquiry is about what learners do​. It involves numerous connected skills, dispositions and processes. It is a fluid, sometimes messy and complex process. The intention of 'The Cycle of Inquiry' is to guide the teacher's (and learner's) thinking beyond simply coming up with activities and towards a more thoughtful process that assists students to move from the known into the unknown and to engage in fruitful dialogue (Murdoch, 2017). 

The challenge for educators, then, is to acknowledge the way we can scaffold our planning and teaching by referring to a process without the process becoming overly prescriptive (Murdoch, 2017). When implemented effectively the inquiry framework should scaffold thinking. Without a framework we run the risk of it being a collection of learning experiences without sustained connections or deepening of learning over time. 

Click image for pdf - including question prompts for each phase

There are a variety of versions of a 'cycle' of inquiry. Kath Murdoch encourages the exploration of a range of frameworks in order to help you deepen and broaden your thinking about the approach that will suit your context. 

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Starting the process by framing the inquiry . . . 

Framing the inquiry is a key part of the initial design phase on an inquiry unit. This essential component of the inquiry cycle asks educators to begin by examining the following:

• Curriculum documents
• Cross-curriculum links
• Whole-School programming guidelines

Starting here helps to ensure educators have a strong understanding of the curriculum requirements mandated by their state, territory or country. Knowing the curriculum well is essential in the inquiry process as it allows educators opportunities to recognise within that inquiry flow the moments where you are actually attending to the curriculum and recognise key conceptual understandings. 

Once we start to recognise cross-curriculum links and making clear the connections across the curriculum for students, then we begin to see much more higher-order thinking. 
Planning in an inquiry process is conidered two-fold --> planning ahead and planning backwards. This allows you to audit the curriculum as you go.​

Planning Ahead:

• What is it we hope students will come to understand more deeply through this inquiry? (understanding goals and key conceptual understanding)
• What knowledge might they need to help them to move towards this understanding?
• What is it we hope students will be able to do more competently? (skills)
• What learning dispositions will this inquiry help students practice and develop further? (dispositions)
• What outcomes are addressed in this inquiry?
• What products of learning will be used to assess knowledge, understanding, skills and thinking?
  

Planning Backwards:

• What did we plan to cover?
• What did we also cover as a result of this inquiry?
• Where are the gaps? Why might this be?
• What do we need to be mindful of?
• What did the products of learning highlight in terms of conceptual understanding, application of learning and skills and development of student thinking?
• What are the learning needs now and where does learning need to go now? 
  

Key Inquiry Questions

​Key Inquiry Questons or sometimes referred to Essential Questions are a powerful way to frame an inquiry journey. When we shift our focus from a topic to a question, there is an immediate & significant difference in how we go about positioning the unit of study. For example, Natural Disasters can be a good context for scientific inquiry, but when we use a compelling question to frame our topic the emphasis shifts to inquiry - How do natural disasters impact people and the environment? Framing the inquiry through an essential questions makes the learning more transferable and shifts practice from a focus on content to a focus on concepts. 

Teachers need to have strong relationships with students and really have a good handle on who the students are as learners and thinkers if the learning is to meet their needs and have a positive impact on educational outcomes. 

-Alice Vigors

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Unpacking the phases of inquiry . . .

Utilising an Inquiry Cycle in the classroom provides a clear framework from which teachers can develop a shared language with students about the learning process. It is a fluid and flexible approach that has explicit teaching embedded at the core. Even though the cycle of inquiry is represented in a cyclical fashion, the process of inquiry learning is non-cyclical and non-directional, meaning that an inquirer may move in and out of the phases depending on where they are in the learning journey. This is where Assessment For Learning practices are essential in all phases of an inquiry. 

Tuning In

This phase is about activating students prior knowledge and making student thinking visible to others in order to understand what students know, understand and any misconceptions they may currently hold. The use of provocations - images, videos, artefacts, and questions; assist teachers to unlock that curiosity and bring to the fore the wonderings students have about the concept. 

Whilst it is often a strong feature at the beginning of an inquiry, it can be a powerful element when used throughout the inquiry to tune in to different elements of a concept being examined and investigated. Student thinking is very much at the core of this phase for teachers. Importantly, the information teachers gather during this phase helps inform subsequent planning. 

Shared Inquiry

This phase features two essential components - Finding Out and Sorting Out. 
Finding Out is the process of involving students in the act of planning for and researching new information through research or engaging in shared experiences that support students to discuss and share their thinking with others. Recording of findings is important in this phase in order to support students to refer back to key information when they take their thinking deeper. 

Sorting Out is a critical phase in the assessment of understanding. Students in this phase are engaged in the process of analysing and sharing discoveries, making meaning and connections, noticing patterns and trends, and revealing a new and deeper understanding of the concept. 

Going Further

This phase is often about releasing more responsibility to the students. This does not mean that they are necessarily engaged in a free inquiry with no supports for a long period of time. It could be that students are engaging in a guided inquiry for 20 minutes to explore a theory, an idea or wondering related to the concept being examined. 

This phase is a key component in supporting student to apply some of the skills they have been learning in the shared inquiry to a more personalised context. 

Reflecting and Acting 

Engaging students in learning experiences that support them to put their learning into action is an essential component of inquiry. Through the applying learning and actively being involved in doing something with the learning students are placed in a good position to review, revise and reflect on what and how they have learned. 

The process of reflecting on learning growth and goal setting is a process that is not just reserved for the end of an inquiry but is an essential component of the whole inquiry process. 

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Evaluating as a core practice . . . 

Evaluation occurs at various stages of the inquiry process. Highly skilled educators engage in the process of formative evaluation as learning occurs to unpack where students are and where learning needs go next. 

Using feedback from students and the evidence of learning gathered through Assessment For, As and Of Learning practices throughout the inquiry process, educators engage in the process of reflecting on and reviewing the effectiveness of the whole inquiry learning unit. Some key questions guide the evaluation process:

• How was understanding, knowledge and skills strengthened?
• How did thinking change?
• What impact did the inquiry have?

Providing clarity and purpose . . .

Providing students with clarity about the learning process and the purpose for undertaking this inquiry is a core component of an inquiry learning approach. Regardless of the pedagogical approach you utilise in your classroom, all students need to have clarity around learning and understand the purpose for learning it. The use of Learning Intentions and Success Criteria are key features of ensuring this occurs. 

• What are we learning?
• Why are we learning about this?
• How will we know we have been successful? 

Whilst the answers to these questions may change at different  points in the inquiry journey as it unfolds, continuing to provide clarity and purpose benefits students immensely.