Inquiry-Based Learning

Phenomenon-Based Learning begins with a critique of the parsed and decontextualized nature of traditional, discipline-based schooling. At its name suggests, Phenomenon-Based Learning is developed around a specific topic, object, person, happening, or concept – which should be authentic to learners, interdisciplinary, contextualized, concrete, and derived from the real world.

Challenge-Based Learning is a hands-on model of collaboration, focused on addressing real-world issues. There are three main stages in the framework: engaging (questioning, naming an actionable challenge), investigating (planning and proceeding), and acting (implementing and evaluating). All stages involve collaboration, documentation, reflection, and sharing.

Technically, “Learning Toys and Tools” can include any object that invites play and stimulates learning. In more precise usage, Learning Toys and Tools includes objects that are deliberately designed for children, to support the development of specific skills and/or the understanding of specific concepts.

Problem-Based Learning is a small-group-based classroom approach that is structured around open-ended problems. The orienting goal is not a defined solution, but the development of knowledge, communication skills, and collaborative competencies – that is, learning is seen to happen at both individual and group levels.

Project-Based Learning aims to support profound understandings of curriculum topics (and more) by involving learners in complex challenges or problems over extended time. The orienting question should be authentic and interdisciplinary, and engaging with it should support creativity, resiliency, and passion on the personal level, as well as communication and other social skills on the interpersonal level.

Design-Based Learning is structured around the making of artefacts through iterative (cyclical, improvement-oriented) processes of design, build, test, and revise. It is seen to engage deeper learning as learners develop, synthesize, and apply their knowledge to create artefacts through body-active problems solving, challenges, and other inquiries.

Studio-Based Learning is based on a type of professional education that it typical in schools of architecture. Under the supervision of a master-designer, students work like apprentices in a common space as they take on a design project. They are able to interact and collaborate as needed. The master-designer provides periodic critiques, and peers gradually take on that responsibility as their skills and knowledge develop. Final products are publicly presented.

Directive Pedagogies include those attitudes and approaches to teaching that assume directional movement of information and authority from the teacher to the student. Images of straight lines figure prominently in discussions and enactments of Directive Pedagogies, including the teacher-to-student line of information flow, the first-to-twelfth-grade trajectory of learner progress, and so on.

Communities Theories are concerned with collective engagement. Among the many variations of contemporary educational interest, the most prominent is perhaps Communities of Practice. Others that have gained some significant traction are Virtual Community of Practice, Network of Practice, Learning Community, and Professional Learning Community.

Coherence Discourses regard distinctions and descriptions as useful devices to make sense of the complex dynamics of learning, but they caution that such devices are mere heuristic conveniences. Coherence Discourses suggest that truths do not exist independently or outside of a system – which is a commentary on humans’ understanding of reality, not a commentary on reality. Most Coherence Discourses employ biological and ecological metaphors, with dynamics framed in evolutionary terms.

Case-Based Learning, as the name suggests, is a model of learner engagement that is developed around a “case” – a fact-based (and typically real-world) scenario that is disciplinary-specific, has the potential to stimulate discussion, and has the breadth to foster significant inquiry. Often the cases are presented as concise stories about individuals facing complex decisions. Case-Based Learning is learner-centered and collaboration-focused.

Games and Learning encompasses research into the use of games in learning environments. Subtopics include creation of social and cultural worlds, communities of game play, and use of game-generated data. Currently the most prominent themes revolve around design principles to support student engagement, Meaningful Learning, learner self-concept, brain development, social interaction, and collaborative knowledge production.

Interpreted directly, Discovery Learning is rooted in the assumption that knowledge is out there, and learning is about finding it and taking it in. That is, it is a modest elaboration of the Acquisition Metaphor, with nearly identical assumptions about knowledge, but ascribing more agency to the learner – who’s seen less as a passive receptacle and more an active agent.