“No teaching approach has greater
potential for student involvement and
engagement than student- directed
investigation (Larson & Keiper, 236)
 Uses real world challenges
 Requires active learning/ student
involvement
 Gives students opportunity to become
“experts”


Types of Student Directed- Investigation:
› Project Based Learning
› Experimental Learning
› Service Learning
› Problem Based Learning
Closely aligned with controversial issues.
 Used to examine issues from multiple
perspectives
 Topics can either be:

› Open
› Closed
› Tipping
Discovery vs. Inquiry
 Teachers will use discovery when they
want students to discover a correct
answer.
 Or teachers will use inquiry to have
students create their own conclusion
about questions or problems.

Discovery is used to examine topics
which are ‘closed’ meaning they are no
longer controversial.
 For example, women's suffrage.
 Teacher presents students with an issue
or question, student then problem solve
through informational resources.

Teacher presents students with the issue
 Students collect data
 Students then analyze data
 Students generate a solution
 Students present or publish their findings
 Teacher assess students learning and
evaluate the process

Inquiry learning is used to examine ‘open
topics’, meaning topics which are not
settled by contemporary society.
 Students are presented with complex
problem which can have several solutions
 For example, healthcare
 3 teacher approaches:

› Structured, guided and open

5 Stages
› Asking
› Investigating
› Interpreting
› Reporting
› Metacognitive Moments- In any stage,
students might reflect, adjust or assess issues
which come up during the process of inquiry.
Time constraint is the biggest obstacle
 Student lack of engagement, failure to
consider competing perspectives and
lack of content knowledge.
 Requires masterful behind the scenes
planning.


=)