Inquiry-Based Learning That Sparks Agency In Civics

We push past rote coverage to show how inquiry turns students into investigators who ask better questions, weigh evidence, and communicate claims. We link inquiry to the EAD roadmap, Arizona standards, and practical frameworks teachers can use right away.

• defining inquiry as student-driven questioning and evidence use
• what inquiry looks like versus what it is not
• teacher as facilitator and curator of sources
• unsettled questions that anchor investigations
• collaboration, civil discourse and productive struggle
• aligning inquiry with the EAD roadmap and state standards
• teaching students to ask better questions with Costa’s levels
• practical frameworks including the 5E model
• resources for elementary through high school
• transfer to media literacy, civic action and careers
• start small, commit, and build capacity over time

We will put all of the resources in the show notes for everyone

Check Out the Civic Literacy Curriculum!

School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership

Center for American Civics

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_03 (00:00):
Welcome back to Civics in the Year.
Today, our episode from theArizona Civics podcast is
talking about inquiry-basedlearning.
And this is one we did all theway back in 2022.
We were lucky enough to have agrant where we had 30 teachers
from around the state of Arizonalearning about the educating for

(00:21):
American democracy roadmap.
We were going through lots ofdifferent things.
And one of the things isinquiry-based learning.
So in this episode, we kind oftake our classes and our
students from passive learningto active learning to show them
what inquiry can do for theirunderstanding of history.

(00:42):
We talk about what inquiry is,what it is not, and what
resources are available forstudents.
And this episode features JeremyGipton, Tammy Waller, and Tara
Bartlett.

SPEAKER_04 (00:54):
Enjoy.
Today's episode, we arediscussing inquiry-based
methods, what they are, and whythey are a way to elevate what's
happening in the classroom.
So with me, as always, are mythree amazing task force chairs
Tammy, Jeremy, and Tara.
We're just going to have adiscussion about this today.

(01:14):
So my very first question hereis just really to get to the

point (01:18):
what is inquiry?

SPEAKER_02 (01:20):
Yeah, I'll go ahead and start.
Tara here.
Hi, everyone.
And I'm actually going to openup with a quote to kind of
demonstrate inquiry itself.
So tell me and I forget.
Teach me and I may remember andinvolve me and I learn by
Benjamin Franklin.
And I think inquiry itself canreally speak to that in terms of

(01:45):
it's the essence of education.
You can reach as far back asJohn Dewey, champion for public
education and democracy, andthat inextricable link to
inquiry and the experientiallearning.
So wanting students to haveexperiences and applying their
learning, experimenting withthat learning.

(02:07):
I mean, it's actually very muchunlike the banking model of
education that views studentsjust as empty vessels, waiting
to be filled, completely devoidof their own, you know, culture,
experiences, worldviews.
Whereas inquiry takes all ofthose into consideration and

(02:28):
allows those students to applytheir culture, their worldviews
and experiences to their ownlearning.

SPEAKER_00 (02:37):
So I love what you said, Tara.
This is Tammy about this emptyvessel.
Because I think about the factthat nowadays, with everyone
having a microprocessor in theirphone and the ability to get
tons of information from theinternet and Google, they can
fill their own vessel.
But what they do with thatvessel is really important and

(02:57):
how they use that information.
So when I think of inquiry, Ithink of it as a process that
students of all ages, right, gothrough.
And with inquiry, you havestudents taking ownership of
their learning by doing the workof the content area field.
So think about it as if we'restudying history, then they're

(03:18):
thinking like historian anddoing the work of a historian.
So when I think about inquiry,and it can be anything from a
warm-up in a classroom to anentire unit, you have students
who are focused on some sort ofstimulus, like a question, a big

(03:39):
question that has not beensettled yet.
And students are exploring thatquestion kind of like history
detectives.
So sometimes the teacher givesthe question, sometimes students
will develop questionsthemselves.
They're using primary andsecondary sources and evidence
to create an evidence-basedanswer, defend that answer, and

(04:02):
then communicate that answer toothers.
So they're going through anentire process of thinking,
learning, and communicating.

SPEAKER_01 (04:10):
Yeah, I I agree with what you folks both just said.
And I'll just add to it, for me,an emphasis has got to be on
learning through asking, askingfor information, asking for
information through questions.
And I think if you stop therethough, you could you could say

(04:30):
that, well, well, anytime I givemy kids a test, anytime a
teacher asks the studentsquestions, well, isn't that that
there are questions.
Questions are being asked,information is being had through
questioning.
I think the that that comes upshort.
I think the vital, a vitaldimension to this is that the
students are asking thequestions.
And I think for me, theimplication goes beyond students

(04:52):
asking questions, it's alsostudents developing questions
because there's a whole layer ofthinking and content knowledge
that develops alongside andbecause of asking questions.
And then as you learn, you'reable to ask better, deeper, more
effective, and interestingquestions.
And so it's yeah, it's all aboutthe questions.

(05:15):
And I think that it's all aboutstudents developing and asking
questions.

SPEAKER_04 (05:20):
What does inquiry specifically look like in a
classroom setting?
So whether, I mean, we can talkabout kindergarten, we can talk
about middle school, highschool.
What does that look like in aclassroom?
But I also want to ask thequestion, what does it not look
like?
Because I think a lot of timeswe get stuck in like, here's
what you should do, here's whatyou should do.
But also I want to make sure wetalk about here's what it is,

(05:41):
not.

SPEAKER_00 (05:42):
Sure.
So inquiry in the classroom isit can be done in many different
ways and very unique todifferent classroom experiences,
but it has some elements incommon.
So in an inquiry classroom, youhave a lot of questions, like
Jeremy had stated.
In the beginning, a questioncould be generated by a teacher,

(06:02):
or students can generate theirown questions, but you see
students really digging intothose questions.
So it's very collaborative.
Inquiry is very collaborative.
So it doesn't look like theteacher up on the board
lecturing about something.
It starts with that bigquestion.
And those questions reallyshould be open-ended and not
settled.

(06:23):
Um, one of my favorite questionsI used to use when teaching
history was Was the AmericanRevolution really revolutionary?
Because it gave studentssomething to really be able to
come up with lots of differentanswers to it.
There wasn't one settledquestion.
It should look like studentsworking with authentic sources.
So a multiplicity of primary andsecondary sources.

(06:45):
When I taught it to youngerstudents, I would bring the
sources in in a box with amagnifying glass, and they could
be like detectives.
And we did like a little roleplay with it, and I called them
my history detectives.
Students who are older mightmight have some sort of
simulation or task that theirinquiries is centered around.
But you have a lot ofcollaboration, you have
questions and authenticresources.

(07:06):
And an inquiry classroom tendsto be, to me, at least a little
bit noisy, and there's just thatbuzz of discussion and and
energy happening.
It doesn't look like studentssitting compliantly just
listening.
So students have are thelearners, maybe teachers are
more the uh facilitators orguides.

SPEAKER_01 (07:28):
Yeah, I think it's important that if if someone
were to walk into a classroomwhere, and again, it's a it it
looks like a lot of things, butif someone were to walk into a
classroom where inquiry is beingdone, for lack of a better word,
where the students arereasonably proficient at it, at
coming up with their own andexploring their own and

(07:49):
answering their own and thencomparing answers to questions,
uh yeah, it's gonna be it isit's definitely gonna be a a
louder, more uh I don't knowwhat word I'm looking for, but
yeah, it's not going to be, it'snot gonna be a bunch of people
sitting in columns and rowsstaring.
I think one thing that I'll I'llthrow out, not I think, one
thing I'll throw out about whatit doesn't look like is again,

(08:10):
and I know I'm gonna sound likeI'm harping on this, this is not
teachers feeding studentsquestions.
That's that's not that's not theway that's not the way it works.
So if if you're thinking aboutlike, hey, how can I write an
inquiry lesson?
One thing I would I would doafter you go through and write

(08:31):
it is ask yourself at each step,am I continually, am I
continually pouring like waterinto the bucket?
Am I continually supplying thequestions?
Or are the students eitherstarting off, depending on how
proficient they are with it, arethey starting off asking
questions, or throughout thelesson or throughout a unit, for
example, are they progressivelytaking on more responsibility

(08:55):
and ownership by asking more ofthe questions themselves?
And that these questions arerelevant and drive this
investigation.
And if you look at it and you'relike, you know what, we kind of
flatlined, it's just me, me, me,me, me, or we reached like a
balance point, then you mightwant to ask yourself, uh, maybe
this isn't exactly inquiry,maybe this is pointing toward
inquiry, but it's actually notit, because the the teacher is

(09:17):
still bearing the burden ofproviding the motive force to
make the lesson and the learningmove forward.
I think real inquiry, when thekids know how to do it,
depending on the model you wantto adopt, and then they become
proficient at it, they start to,whether they realize it or not,
they're providing the motiveforce behind the lesson instead

(09:38):
of the teacher constantlysaying, Okay, here, answer these
five questions.
You have four minutes.
No.
So I think I would I would askmyself that.
And if it does look like that,then it's probably not inquiry.

SPEAKER_02 (09:49):
Just listening to both Tammy and Jeremy here as a
teacher, a lot of times theremight be this hesitancy to use
inquiry in the classroom due tothis sense of almost giving up
that control, right?
To the students in class.
But instead, inquiry should beuh viewed more so as a journey
with your students through thecontent, where you're

(10:12):
co-creating and co-discoveringand co-questioning that content
together.
So it's really a pedagogicalmethod, an approach as to how to
deliver the content itself.
And again, it's just one tool inyour teacher toolbox, right?
There's always time and placefor direct instruction and other
teaching strategy tools.

(10:32):
It's not something you'reprobably going to necessarily
use in every lesson every day,but it's getting past what you
know, Jeremy and Tammy alludedto is getting past this rote
fact memorization or the teacherbeing the holder of all
knowledge and bestowing thatupon students, but rather, as
was stated, is an investigationor an exploration.

(10:53):
And it's really again throughasking those questions.
So the teacher's role in inquiryis really this facilitator,
right?
They're going to be thediscussant, and as Tammy pointed
out, the curator of materials,which is actually a really
important, Tammy.
I'm glad you had brought thatup, a really important aspect of
inquiry.
Because as the teacher, thematerials that you bring in for

(11:14):
your students to do inquirywith, you're already setting up
guardrails, or you're at leastcreating some type of bounded
case around these documents orsources that you want your
students to use.
So that's really key.
And I think that also is, youknow, something that can make or
break an inquiry-based lesson asbeing that successful curation

(11:35):
of materials.
And students in inquiry, theyreally do need to be given, you
know, as Jeremy talked about,that kind of time, that space,
the intellectual struggle, theasking of those questions around
those materials that have beencurated, but then also a time
for co-learning with their peersto be able to discuss what it

(11:55):
was that they're observing, toask, even amongst their peers,
questions around the sources orthe topic at hand, which really
also, you know, drives home thathealthy debate and deliberation
and civil discourse that we wantour students to be engaged in
already.
But it's it's really importantalso for students to have that
time to, you know, have thatcollective struggle with their

(12:16):
peers to hear how others areunderstanding the content, which
I think again goes back to thatidea that students are not empty
vessels.
And sometimes, you know,students have their own lens and
their own lived experiences thatthey might bring into that space
around those materials.
And just learning from oneanother is really important as
well to the inquiry method.

SPEAKER_04 (12:36):
I love that you said inquiry is a journey through the
content with your students.
So as teachers, we arefacilitators and curators of
resources.
And if you haven't listened tothe primary source episode of
this podcast, I very highlysuggest it because again, as you
listen, all of these thingsweave in together.

(12:56):
So I do want to ask my nextquestion is how does, I mean,
we've talked about what inquiryis, what it's not, how it can be
used in the classroom, but howexactly does this tie in with
the EAD?

SPEAKER_02 (13:07):
Inquiry is just baked into the framework already
of the EAD model, right?
And it's about making thatcontent relevant to students,
really posing and positioningstudents to be able to grapple
with, and then, you know, aswe've talked about, ask their
own questions of that content.
Of course, all done throughthose primary sources and being

(13:29):
able to formulate evidence-basedclaims.
And so I think a lot of whatwe've already really talked
about, it's an easy lift that isalready taking place within the
EAD framework.
And inquiry questions can beused again for all sorts of
activities.
I know Tammy had spoken to some,but even throughout the EAD
framework, you know, posing someof these questions that are

(13:51):
available amongst the seventhemes as part of an inquiry
platform to just even, you know,start your lesson, some type of
opening question to gaugestudents', you know, interest.
You could actually use a lot ofthose questions in the EAD
framework of the seven themes todo a deeper dive into specific
content areas and diversematerials that you're curating.

(14:13):
It also could those questionscould be used as you know,
deliberation and discussionaround Socratic seminars.
And again, a lot of thosequestions in the EAD framework
around the seven themes can beused for reflection for students
to reflect upon, you know,post-lesson or after looking
through certain materials.
So it's already there.
I think it's again just a reallyeasy lift as a teacher to

(14:35):
pinpoint which questions to takefrom the EAD themes and
framework and implement thosealongside lessons in your
classroom.

SPEAKER_01 (14:46):
Yeah, and I'll just add to that that so much of EAD
implies an active an activestudent, students actively
learning the material.
They're not just, again, thereis empty vessels having having
information, not even knowledge,just information imparted upon
them.
They're active participants inthis, and there's a reason for

(15:06):
that.
And we'll address this in thelast question.
I think there's room to talkabout it more there.
But but inquiry, obviously, ifif done right, is it such a it's
such an active mode of learning,and it it develops it helps
develop so many good habits anddispositions interpersonally,

(15:29):
intellectually in people, thatit it just marries so well with
so many of the other things thatare explicitly and implicitly a
part of EAD?

SPEAKER_00 (15:41):
So I'm just going to add a few things on because just
such great information on thisquestion so far.
The one thing I want to add onis there was a big debate when
the roadmap was being created,and part of the participants
wanted a list of content thatstudents should know.
But the other half said, well,why not a list of questions

(16:02):
instead?
Because the questions will needa foundational aspect of
content, but questions offer somany more opportunities for
students to bring their ownperspective, to get involved, to
get student agency.
So in the end, the entireroadmap was created based on
this idea of inquiry orquestions.

(16:24):
So students across the UnitedStates would grapple with the
same types of questions, butstudents in South Dakota might
approach it a little bitdifferent than students in
Massachusetts or Arizona.
And I think that's one of thegeniuses of the EAD roadmap.
The fourth pedagogical principleis inquiry, and that teachers

(16:46):
should be using the inquiryprocess as part of teaching the
roadmap.
So it is EAD.
It's almost synonymous withinquiry.
And it also connects, and I'mjust going to do a little state
standards connection.
Our Arizona state standards areinquiry-based as well.
And if you look especially atthose SP or skills and process

(17:07):
standards, those take studentsthrough the entire inquiry
process for all of the differentcontent areas in the social
studies.
So I think it's um, I think it'sconnected to EAD, it's connected
to our state standards, and it'sconnected to student desire to
have a voice and a say and tomatter because if you're asking

(17:29):
inquiry questions, then you aretrusting the students and you're
also celebrating theseincredible answers that students
develop in response toquestions.

SPEAKER_04 (17:41):
If I'm a teacher and I'm listening to this podcast
right now and I'm like, this isall really, really great, but
where do I go?
How do I learn more aboutinquiry?
Where should we point teachers?
And again, all the resourcesthat are going to be talked
about will absolutely be in theshow notes.
So, what resources are availablefor teachers who have more

(18:01):
questions about inquiry-basedlearning?

SPEAKER_01 (18:03):
Well, I think the first thing that teachers need
to do if you want to do inquiryand you want to do it well and
you want to do it effectively, Ithink you've got to teach your
kids to ask questions.
You have to teach your studentshow to ask good, clear, useful
questions that can help themdrive an investigation, whether

(18:28):
that's going to be over like alesson or two or a longer block
of instruction, you know, interms of focus on a given block
of content.
You've got to teach them how towrite and ask and consider and
then reframe good questionsbecause they don't know how.
Maybe that sounds horrible, butreally they don't know how to

(18:51):
ask good questions.
Most people don't know how toask good questions and not just
like maybe they'll ask severalquestions to start something,
but how do you ask, how do youthen look at your questions and
the answers you might havegotten and then maybe reframe
those same questions to peelback more layers, or ask a
second round, a follow-up roundof questions to drive your

(19:12):
investigation and clarify it andfocus it.
People just don't know how to dothat.
Uh two weeks from now, a newanother episode is going to drop
about actionable models ofinquiry.
And one of the ones that Italked about at length is uh
Costa's levels of questions.
So if you go look up Costa,C-O-S T A, plus levels of
questions in a in a search,you'll find some information

(19:35):
about a model that I think isparticularly effective in
teaching students how to askdifferent kinds of questions.
And it also establishes a commonvocabulary, conceptual and
intellectual, that enables youto work with them to help them
write even better questions.
Because if the kids aren'tasking questions, at some point
they're just not doing inquiry.

(19:55):
So teach them to ask questions,wait for the episode on 11 on
April 11th, or go looking forCosta's levels of questions.
That's what I would say firstand foremost.

SPEAKER_00 (20:05):
Yeah, um, I I love that, Jeremy.
The levels of questions is soimportant.
There's some places whereteachers can start off right
away to get some moreinformation about inquiry.
Yeah, the Department ofEducation at ADE, we put
together a four-part series ofwebinars on inquiry, starting

(20:26):
with just the basics of what isinquiry and why it's important,
and ending with how do youassess using inquiry.
So these are on-demand webinarsthat Linda over at ADE has put
together, which are very helpfulas a really good strong
introduction.
If you're an elementary teacher,there are some great resources.

(20:46):
I'm going to focus on elementaryfor inquiry.
Um, the first thing I want totalk to you about is this idea
of the Library of Congress hassome partner sites.
And one of their partner sitesis for elementary teachers, and
it's called history mysteries.
And history mysteries arehistorical inquiries of

(21:08):
elementary classroom, and manyof them also cover civics,
geography, culture.
And it starts off withintroducing your students to the
work of historians by gettingthem to start thinking like a
historian about some artifacts,but then it has really
well-aligned inquiry questionsthat teachers can start off
exploring with their studentsand resources with it.

(21:30):
So that would be a great place,I think, as an elementary
teacher to start.
And they have some little guidesfor teachers to get started as
well.
In addition, I would say thatC3Teachers.org is a free
resource, and it was puttogether with Race from the Top
Money, started in New York, andit was after the C3 framework

(21:51):
came out for social studies, andbasically it uses an inquiry
design model that createsinquiries, two to three-day
inquiries for gradeskindergarten through 12th grade.
And you can search for them, youcan look at them, you can take a
little piece of them, like anintroductory lesson or resource
to get you started with that.

(22:12):
And then finally, Inquire Ed isa new resource that's out, and
it is for uh K-5, and um, theyare doing a lot of free webinars
to introduce educators on how toask questions, how to use
primary sources with elementaryschool, age students, different
ways to communicate yourresults.

(22:33):
So I think just focusing onelementary, there's a plethora
of resources that have comeabout because of the need for
elementary teachers to havethese resources.

SPEAKER_02 (22:43):
Yeah, I actually was gonna name the C3 framework,
Tammy, then I also will agreethat that is an excellent
resource to start just divinginto both the pedagogy behind
inquiry-based learning, but thenalso resources that teachers can
readily take and startimplementing within their
classroom for differentinquiry-based lessons.
So I'll just add on a few otherdifferent resources, one of them

(23:05):
being the five E framework,which essentially is a process
for students to undertake interms of exploring inquiry.
So, for example, the first E isengage, and that would be as the
teacher, that curation ofmaterials and having your
students engage with thosematerials or engage with
questions to start your lesson.

(23:26):
Students then go into explore,where they're going to have
their own time, their own spaceto explore those materials or a
deeper dive into those inquiryquestions, followed by explain.
And so this is really thatbridge, which I think we speak
to in the Costa webinar orexcuse me, the Costa podcast,
where we have studentstransition from um kind of that

(23:50):
level one into that level two,where they're now going to take
in of themselves the resourcesand how they are internalizing
those resources andunderstanding those resources,
and then being able to explainhow these resources impact them
or their learning.
The fourth E is to elaborate.
And so again, taking it to thatthird level of cost is thinking,

(24:11):
where they're now going to beelaborating upon whatever those
resources or inquiry-basedquestions are.
And then the last E beingevaluate.
And again, that's you know,something that can follow
through as a reflectionpost-lesson and have your
students kind of evaluate theirlearning and their learning
process that they engaged in.
And again, that's the five Eframework.
And there's lots of you knowfree resources if you just had

(24:33):
to Google that, that you canlook at as an educator.
One other um resource isfacinghistory.org.
I would say that this issimilar, I think, probably to
history mystery, but for a lotof the older grades, so middle
school through high school,there are some elementary
lessons on there.
But I, as a middle schoolteacher, previously really found
facinghistory.org a superhelpful resource.

(24:56):
And again, those are lessonsthat are just easily and readily
adaptable and ready to use inyour classroom as a teacher.
The last resource I'll throw outthere is the Pulitzer Center.
And, you know, we might knowthat name, Pulitzer, as the you
know, prize for journalism.
There you have a center that'salso very much geared towards
public education aroundjournalism, but they have an

(25:18):
entire section and toolkit forinquiry learning for teachers in
their classroom.
And again, these are going to beboth professional development
for teachers, but then lessonsthat teachers can take and
implement within theirclassroom.
And they're all very muchinquiry-based, but also aimed at
increasing students' globalcompetency of understanding the
world around them, which I thinkties really nicely back to the

(25:39):
EAD framework.
But then also the criticalthinking and communication
skills, which of course we wantto have our students engaged in
in the classroom as well.

SPEAKER_04 (25:48):
This is exciting.
All of these websites I havepulled up, and I'm, I think one
of the things I'm most excitedhere is that there's so much for
elementary teachers becauseelementary teachers, you know,
are responsible to begeneralists.
They have to know everything.
And a lot of times the sciencesand the social studies get put
on the back burner because ofwhatever fee testing happens.

(26:08):
And so just looking at thesequickly, there are very specific
lessons for every grade level.
So I will make sure all of thoseare in the show notes for
everyone.
I have one last question.
So we've talked about teachers,we've talked about classrooms.
How does inquiry, though, helpstudents be on the classroom?
Because really, I think asteachers, you know, we want to

(26:29):
help them as much as we can intheir classroom, but really the
mark of good education is whathappens outside the classroom.
So whether that's after schoolhours or even after they've, you
know, left your grade level, howcan this help students be on the
classroom?

SPEAKER_02 (26:45):
I think that really is the crux of education, right?
Like what is it that we want ourstudents to carry forth?
And we can definitely say it'snot just rote memorization of
like static facts and figuresand history.
Yes, that's great to know, butin terms of action, you know,
beyond our classroom and beyondtheir K-12 learning experiences,
I'm actually going to return tokind of our opening conversation

(27:07):
of that, you know, concept ofempty vessels as students.
And we don't want our studentsto go out into the world as
these empty vessels just simplyfilled up with factoids without
any type of connection orexperiencing, you know, um
experimenting and connectingthose factoids to their greater
understanding of the worldaround them.
So I think this also drives homekind of the heart of our

(27:30):
democracy in that we want ourstudents to be critical
thinkers.
We want our students to becivically engaged, whether
that's in their community or insome type of political venture
or electorally, where they'reshowing up to vote and have an
informed vote at that.
And so this really is important,I think, to just sustaining a
lot of our democratic processesand procedures that we have here

(27:53):
within the US.
And really a lot of these skillsthat are taught through the
inquiry framework are thingsthat will serve students in
future careers.
And again, you know, not just inthe societal impact, but also,
you know, economic impacts thatwe might see students being able
to weigh factual evidence andyou know, traverse

(28:15):
multi-narrative accounts andcome up with their own informed
um opinions and knowledges.
And so this really is, I think,an important, you know,
inquiry-based learning is justan important tenet of you know,
education, really in of itself.

SPEAKER_00 (28:33):
Just to add to that, when students leave our
classroom, they are going tohave to solve problems that we
don't even know about and createsolutions to that, those
problems.
And inquiry teaches students touse curiosity, it teaches them
to explore, to both creativelyand critically think.

(28:54):
It teaches them how to read andanalyze, it teaches them how to
communicate, which is essentialin every aspect of their life,
even if they're trying tocommunicate and persuade their
parents to loan them a car forthe weekend, right?
Learning inquiry skills can helpthem to do any type of
persuasion.
And one of the things that I'veseen inquiry do is really

(29:16):
develop media literacy skills instudents, because now students
question, they uh search foranswers, they weigh, they think
about how do I make sure thatthis is accurate?
What sources am I looking at?
So you're creating um studentswho are also going to be able to
transfer those skills not onlyto college career, but also to

(29:39):
civic life, being able toanalyze uh news sources, being
able to solve problems in theircommunities.
And I think inquiry helpsstudents immensely, um, no
matter what career they go into,no matter where they are.
They're always going to becitizens with a small C trying
to work through issues.

(30:00):
Within our own community.

SPEAKER_01 (30:01):
Trevor Burrus, Yeah.
I'll just build on that bysaying that if you're sitting
back and you're seeing thingsunfold, and you you would
naturally, as a citizen, as a asan active participant in our
civic life, you would want to,you would recognize the need to
learn about it.
You would recognize the need tounderstand it in order that you

(30:23):
can or can choose not to takeaction about it and in what way.
And so by teaching our studentsnot only to ask good questions
and then teaching them how to goabout using that for a purpose,
we're we're teaching, it soundscorny, but it's absolutely true.
We're teaching them not only inknowledge, not only in skills,

(30:47):
but in habits and dispositionsto be the active citizens and
informed citizens, those twothings being, you know, have a
having a reciprocal and mutuallysupportive relationship with one
another.
That's what we're trying toteach them to be.
I think we can't ever lose sightof that.

SPEAKER_04 (31:05):
Wonderful.
We have so many resources toshare, so many resources, but I
think we need to find a goodplace on the internet to put
them all, which is somethingthat I will be working on.
Thank you again.
I always enjoy chatting with thethree of you.
We have more episodes coming up.

(31:25):
We are excited to share the workthat we are doing.
Is there any last minute thingsthat we want to throw out there
for our listeners aboutinquiry-based learning?

SPEAKER_00 (31:41):
Don't feel overwhelmed by having to do
everything.
Start small and start with theteaching your students how to
ask questions and explorethrough questions.

SPEAKER_01 (32:07):
This is something that you to which you must
commit and you have to, you haveto start small and you have to
be deliberate, you have to beintentional and you have to be
committed.
And that doesn't mean you throwout your lesson plan book and
say, okay, I'm burning all theold stuff because we're going to
be all inquiry.
It's like, no, no, no.
You start small and you findways to weave more of this

(32:28):
approach into what you are doinguntil such point that maybe
there are things that you haveyou have thrown away, but it's
something that's happened overtime.
You you're not going to ask themto do this overnight.
This is something that you haveto build up over time because it
is.
It is building knowledge, it'sbuilding skills, and it's
building habits.
So it's going to take acommitment and it's going to

(32:49):
take time, but that's also wherethe payoff is.
It's not something that you haveto do over a short-term period
of time.

SPEAKER_02 (32:57):
I echo both Tammy and Jeremy's advice on
implementing inquiry.
And I think I'll I'll leave youmore on a high note in that.
It's it's fun.
It really is fun for you as theteacher.
Instead of being, you know, thesage on the stage and speaking
to students the entire classperiod or time around a lesson.

(33:17):
You take the backseat and yousee your students drive the
lesson.
And I think that it's reallyrewarding to, as Jeremy said,
when your students are at thatpoint and you've done it enough
and you're comfortable and yourstudents are comfortable with
it, it really is a fun andrewarding experience.

SPEAKER_04 (33:34):
Fantastic.
Well, again, thank you all somuch, and we will see you for
the next episode.