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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Knowledge is … scope of established actions and interpretations
Knowing is … doing
Learner is … an investigating collective
Learning is … developing understanding while through application and exploration
Teaching is … facilitating, guiding
Originated
1960s
Synopsis
Proposed nearly a century ago, Inquiry-Based Learning was designed to interrupt assumptions of context-free knowledge, passive learning, and smooth paths to understanding. Inquiry-Based Learning focuses on pursuing authentic interests, posing researchable questions, and participating in knowledge production. Various types of Inquiry-Based Learning have been described, including:
Structured Inquiry – teacher leads the entire class in a shared inquiry
Controlled Inquiry – teacher selects topics and resources to be engaged by students
Guided Inquiry – teacher chooses topic and students design their engagement
Free Inquiry(Open Inquiry) – students choose topics without reference to prescribed outcomes
Context-Based Learning (Salters’Approach) (Salters’ Company, 1990s) – aimed at promoting deep engagement with the content, and at developing both practical and theoretical knowledge, Context-Based Learning focuses on examples (actual and fictitious) and emulates real working environments by incorporating social, cultural, and political elements
Guided Reinvention (Realistic Mathematics Education, 1990s) – developed through and mainly focused on mathematics learning, an approach to whole-class teaching designed to shepherd learners through the discernments and logical connections necessary to “invent” the concept under study. It is highly reminiscent of Structured Inquiry (see above).
Inductive Teaching (Inquiry Training Model; Inductive Problem Solving) – a mode of teaching focused on gathering relevant information, assessing factuality, identifying relationships among facts, and deriving principles and generalizations based on those relationships
Commentary
Inquiry-Based Learning was originally intended as a pedagogical format, but it has become more of an umbrella notion that stretches over a wide array of methods that align with its emphases on learner involvement in authentic, situated study. On the up-side, the array of contemporary interpretations suggests broad embrace and varied uptake. On the down-side, included in the diversity are approaches – such as Discovery Learning – that lack nuanced appreciations of the Coherence Discourses that originally informed Inquiry-Based Learning. In many contexts, these trivialized interpretations have poisoned the waters for educators seeking to implement Inquiry-Based Learning.
Authors and/or Prominent Influences
John Dewey
Status as a Theory of Learning
Inquiry-Based Learning is not a theory of learning.
Status as a Theory of Teaching
Inquiry-Based Learning is a theory of teaching.
Status as a Scientific Theory
Inquiry-Based Learning is founded on scientific theories of learning. Its own evidence base is not especially robust, however – almost certainly because of an unfortunate and inconsistent diversity of interpretations and similar variation in implementation.
Subdiscourses:
Context-Based Learning (Salters’ Approach)
Controlled Inquiry
Free Inquiry (Open Inquiry)
Guided Inquiry
Guided Reinvention
Inductive Teaching (Inquiry Training Model; Inductive Problem Solving)
Structured Inquiry
Map Location
Please cite this article as:
Davis, B., & Francis, K. (2021). “Inquiry-Based Learning” in Discourses on Learning in Education. https://learningdiscourses.com.
