Units of Inquiry

How do you know a unit is truly driven by inquiry rather than shaped by a sequence of activities?

Units of inquiry can easily become inquiry in name only, through which learners are led through pre-determined activities or unit ‘workbooks’ that resemble topics or themed work. Even when named as engagements, learning experiences and provocations, many are neither informed by nor responsive to the ideas, theories and curiosities of learners themselves. Inquiry celebrates learner agency affirming that children are active contributors to their learning communities and that their ideas matter. 

For me, inquiry is rooted in questioning. Questioning as a process and a mindset, though not always in the grammatical form of a question. Questioning lives in our actions, expressions and language, and breathes in our wonderings, theories, surprises, doubts and confusion. 

Regardless of the content, what considerations do you keep in mind to ensure your planning is intentional FOR inquiry without over-defining the exact pathways it may take? 

Some considerations that may spark further ideas and wonderings:

Consideration	Specific examples from a 'How we organise ourselves' unit for 3- to 5-year olds
Frame the central idea/unit around two or three ‘other’ concepts. Beyond identifying the specified concepts, what complex ideas are worth investigating that add challenge, evoke surprise and hold tension and doubt? When multiple concepts frame an inquiry, there is a shift from deepening understanding of one idea to making connections between concepts and transferring learning across contexts. One of our main goals is to resist simplifying these concepts so that thinking remains with the learners.	This particular unit was framed around space, decision making and perspective.
Help children to build personal connections to these abstract concepts by exploring how these ideas are already present and relevant in their own lives and the local area. Learners can immerse themselves in storytelling using “I”, “At home” and “We”. These stories often awaken unexpected pathways and connections for inquiry that the learners initiate and are intrigued to pursue based on what they notice, wonder and become curious about.	As children started to think about different spaces they use and visit, I overheard one child say to another on his birthday, “I’ve made a special space for you!”  I shared the line I heard with the class the next day. The idea that some spaces are 'special' led to many children sharing stories about spaces special to them, and a child asking, “Does everyone have a special space?”
Ask for photographs from home and take photographs in school of the children engaged with the concept. These moments in time captured visually help learners appreciate the significance of these concepts and how they matter to them. These traces can move beyond recounting and open up new perspectives, beckoning children to connect with others and revisit and extend their thinking.	We took photographs of children playing in and out of the classroom, including spaces we visited as part of Paris as a Classroom. These included parks. gardens, forests and playgrounds. Parents were also invited in to share photographs of a space that was special to them (perspective) and how decisions have been made about this space. These photographs were displayed on the learning wall and prompted children to ask about who and how they made decisions about spaces. Of particular interest were playgrounds.
Curate the learning spaces intentionally so children have sustained encounters with the concepts through play. Through play, many of these encounters will be social and will deepen and broaden understanding through shared dialogue and interaction. Careful selection of resources and materials (including loose parts) and the decision to use language - or not use it - to frame invitations and provocations, all offer children multiple ways to engage with and represent concepts in multiple ways while nurturing genuine curiosity.	We intentionally read the 'You Choose' books to build excitement around the concept of decision making.  A classroom space was changed to include a light projector and various opaque, transparent and translucent materials. Children and adults all puzzled over distance and angle for the wall space to be changed by how we used the floor space.  Learners share perspectives and make decisions in learning spaces all day through their play. We tried to capture these processes to help children become more conscious of them.  As a bridge between the previous unit on storytelling, we curated what the children named the "Special Storytelling Space". They decided where to position stories they had previously created using text, mark making, construction materials and loose parts to share with families who were invited in for a morning.
Be playful in the way novelty is harnessed to kindle questioning. New materials, unexpected combinations, shifts in space, challenges and surprises can all disrupt rhythms and routines to entice children to notice differently—to see something known with fresh eyes or to become intrigued by something not yet understood. These moments are charged with possibility and often carry the beginnings of new lines of inquiry.	The windows were introduced as a novel space to consider. Children worked in small groups, each with their own window pane and glass markers, to decide how we might use this space. This was one of many first-hand opportunities for children to share perspectives and make decisions about a space. As the unit progressed, children became more aware of and skilled in negotiation and compromise.
Beyond spoken words, consider the languages of materials, movement and drawing to help explore and represent the big ideas of a unit. Using metaphor or personificafion with materials, for example, can reveal creative, poetic and deep connections to the concepts, opening up new layers to investigate.	'The Day The Crayons Quit' was read aloud to explore the perspectives of different colouring pencils and how they expressed their feelings and thoughts.  A missed opportunity I realised in writing this blog was offering the children a chance to consider the decisions different materials such as water, puppets and Magna-Tiles make in their play.  Towards the end of the unit, I invited the children to imagine the perspectives that spaces might have using the photographs of the different spaces we had visited. The children loved playing with the idea and one concluded, "We should thank the spaces for what they do!"
Playful encounters are often designed for learners “to do” while adults lead small groups in a series of carousel rotations. These encounters are not just activities. They are rich contexts for educators as researchers to observe through a specific and carefully considered lens. What we document through what we hear and observe becomes the rich and invaluable traces of thinking that empower us to nudge, provoke and extend the inquiry in informed and responsive ways. Learners’ language, interactions and research unearth so many of their working theories, personal connections, points of confusion and moments of wonder. For some learners, their “doing” offers a deeper insight into their “thinking” than any well-planned reflection time could.	Documentation allowed us once again to see patterns in children's thinking across different moments of time and play. Thinking about decision making in the nearby nature trail led one child to declare, "You should not pick flowers." Unpacking the 'why' behind this led to an investigation of responsible and irresponsible decision making, but also the concepts of death and cycles.  In this unit, one child framed a wondering using the sentence starter "What if...?" This led to an exploration of the power of these two words in inquiry. Of course, many children took the model of "What if...?" and connected it to their fascination with nature, death and cycles. "What if the cycle doesn't continue?", "What if all the trees die?" and "What if the seeds in the nature trail don't grow?"
As learners reveal what it is they are questioning and seek to figure out, a critical part of the inquiry process is to consider how they might find out more. Starting with what the children already know, we can gently broaden their awareness of different forms of media, how people can be interviewed and surveyed and how first-hand experiences such as play, observations and experiments can deepen inquiry.	"How could we find out?" was a question posed multiple times during this unit of inquiry. By the end of the year, children were familiar with the idea of books and videos being valuable sources of information, as well as using play to figure something out.  The question, "Does everyone have a special space?" led us to the idea of a survey. The children chose who they wanted to survey with the same question. Some wanted to ask adults, others chose children in Kindergarten, and others decided to visit the oldest children. The children were then challenged to think about how they will remember the responses they heard from many people.
Learners need opportunities to make sense of what they find out, research, investigate and discover throughout a journey of inquiry. Visible documentation for learners to revisit is essential here. For example, a learning wall that showcases photographs and direct quotes from children. Educators should not deny learners the opportunity to grapple with new ideas, opposing perspectives and contradictory information. These realities of meaning making honour the complexity of inquiry and create unparalleled learning opportunities about, through and with the world! In these moments, there is less urgency to resolve and more attention given to the process of meaning-making itself.	One of the biggest grapples in this unit of inquiry was for the children to make their own groups decisions in and about spaces, considering different perspectives. It's challenging for many adults, too! We did not rescue children from these beautiful complexities. Instead, we gifted children opportunities, time, materials and nudges when needed.  One such opportunity was for the class to use a map of the local area and decide on a space we had not been to yet that might be exciting to visit! It was fascinating to observe this decision making process! As we arrived at the park the children decided on, I asked, "How do we know there’s a new space?" This was something that the children struggled to make sense of initially. It would have been too easy for an adult to give "the" answer. Through careful observation, walking in and out of the space and interpreting environmental print, the children (and adults) gained so much meaning through these processes.

What is one consideration you would add to help learners shift from participating in learning to actively shaping it through their questioning?