INQUIRY BASED INTEGRATED
CURRICULUM
Presented by Nadine Le Mescam
nadine.lemescam@bigpond.com
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
Wanted: Global Citizens
The world needs young people who are
culturally sophisticated and prepared to work in
an international environment
 To do this, schools need to restructure
curriculum and pedagogy to place student
engagement at the centre of learning
 Learning should be based on key concepts and
issues relevant to students lives
 Education for a global era is education for lifelong
cognitive and behavioral engagement with the
world

(Suarez-Orozco and Sattin, 2007)
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
How? What we know....
We should try and turn out people who love
learning so much and learn so well that they
will be able to learn whatever needs to be
learned (John Holt)
 Learning should have horizontal relevance,
mere vertical relevance isn’t enough (Lilian Katz,

Alfie Kohn)

Students learn most avidly and have their
best ideas when they get to choose which
questions to explore (Alfie Kohn)
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
WHAT IS “ESSENTIAL”?
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
What is essential for your learning
community?
Bendigo Education Plan
 Personalised Learning
 Negotiated Curriculum
 Transdisciplinary Learning
 Inquiry Based

Nadine Le Mescam 2008
VELS Perspectives
To succeed in our ever-changing world, students
need to develop the capacities to:
Manage themselves as individuals and in
relation to others
 Understand the world in which they live;
and
 Act effectively in that world

Nadine Le Mescam 2008
Victorian Essential
Learning Standards
 Manage
self and
relationships
 Understand
their world
 Act effectively
UNESCO Four
Pillars of Learning
Learning to Know
 Learning to Do
 Learning to Be
 Learning to Live
Together

Nadine Le Mescam 2008
ACCORDING TO VELS....
The standards for student achievement do not
prescribe any particular curriculum. Nor do they
constitute the totality of the program that students
will receive. Rather, they indicate what is essential
for students to know and be able to do at different
levels. It is then up to schools and teachers to
choose the curriculum that best helps students to
meet these standards, while addressing broader
student interests and needs .
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
AT THE HEART OF IT....
The essence of the Victorian Essential
Learning Standards is the integrated focus on
knowledge, skills and behaviours in the three
strands of Physical, Personal and Social
Learning, Discipline-based Learning, and
Interdisciplinary Learning that together
develop deep understanding in learners which
can be transferred to new and different
contexts.
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
WHAT DO TEACHERS SAY?
When planning with the Victorian Essential
Learning Standards (VELS), many teachers
are discovering the value of inquiry to
purposefully integrate domains from each of
the strands.
Murdoch, 2006
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
INTEGRATED
CURRICULUM
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
Integrated Curriculum
 Structured
organisation of
teaching and learning experiences
 Significant content to develop
understandings of the world
 Authentic links occur across and
within learning areas
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
A common stumbling block….
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
Our Working Model
“In essence, integrating the curriculum
involves the integration of content and
process. The content subjects are
essentially concerned with ideas about
how the world works. The process
subjects offer a range of ways of allowing
us to represent how we see and make
meaning of our world (real or imagined).”
Pigdon and Woolley, 1992, p.7
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
The content subjects are
essentially concerned
with ideas about how
the world works.
The process subjects offer a
range of ways of allowing us
to represent how we see
and make meaning of our
world (real or imagined)
Murdoch, 1998, p.3
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
SIGNIFICANT CONTENT AREAS:
Those areas which contain understandings about how
the world works
Host Areas of Inquiries
Civics and Citizenship
The Humanities (Economics,
Geography, History)
Science
Health and Physical Education
(Health Knowledge and Promotion)
The Arts
English
Communication
Mathematics
Health and Physical
Education (Movement and
Physical Activity)
LOTE
Design, Creativity and
Technology
ICT
PROCESS AREAS:
Those areas which allow us to find out or sort
our information about how the world works
They helps use perceive the world, or express
what we know and/or feel.
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
Interpersonal Development
Personal Learning
Thinking
LEARNING SKILLS AREAS:
Those areas which contain the skills of inquiry
These are the ways that we work as we inquire
These are ongoing throughout any inquiry, and are developed
in context of the learning environment
Integrating the Curriculum
•Structured
organisation of
teaching and
learning experiences
•Significant content
to develop
understandings of
the world
ENGLISH
Civics and
Citizenship
ICT
•Authentic links
occur across and
within learning areas
Interpersonal Learning
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
Relationship Between Content and
Process
CONTENT
Give substance and
meaning to forms of
perception and
expression
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
PROCESS
In turn, forms of expression
and perception
enable us to make sense of
life experience
Integrated curriculum is best
delivered….
Within an inquiry based approach:
“Learning is more powerful when content,
process and skills are developed and
extended in meaningful, integrated
contexts where students construct their
own learning”
Wilson & Wing Jan, 2003, p.11
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
INQUIRY LEARNING
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
Understanding starts with
a question, not any question,
but a real question.
(Bettencort, 1991)
Discuss with your group: What does this mean
to you?
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
A real question expresses the desire to
understand. This desire is what moves the
questioner to pursue the question until an
answer has been made. Desiring to
understand opens ourselves to
experiencing what is new as new, and the
already known under new aspects.
(Bettencort, 1991)
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
Real questions come from students

Students are more likely to be engaged
when they focus on answering their own
questions (Oehelkers & Ruple, 2007)

Inquiry questions can’t be framed ahead
of time by teachers or curriculum
experts....the questions and curriculum,
are negotiated with the students. (Short &
Burke, 1996)
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
INQUIRY BASED LEARNING





Learning is not just about content, but also
process.
An effective integrated curriculum should
consider connections, but also the way in which
students learn.
Inquiry learning is a process of investigation
Questions are formed, and time is given to
explore the answers
Allows students to unify, rather than separate,
knowledge as they move from acquisition of
facts to the development of broader concept
and generalisations
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
THEORY
BUILDING
GENERALISATIONS:
Expressions of the
relationship
between two or more
concepts
THE RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN FACTS,
CONCEPTS, AND
GENERALISATIONS
Adapted from Wilson
and Wing Jan, 2003, p.4
CONCEPTS:
Classified/categorised groups of
related facts
FACTS:
Truths about specific events, objects, people.
These are easily investigated
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
The Inquiry Process
1.
2.
Arrange in the learning process
What happens at each stage?
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
TUNING IN
FINDING
OUT
SORTING
OUT
GOING
FURTHER
ACTION
DRAWING
CONCLUSIONS
THE INQUIRY PROCESS
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
TWO LAYERS TO
INQUIRY
LEARNING
Inquiry learning can
be used to as a
vehicle to plan and
drive effective
integrated units of
work.
Through learning to
learn and reflection on
the learning process,
students can become
active members of the
learning community by
undertaking their own
personal inquiries either
within the topic, or in a
topic of their own
choice.
The result is powerful learning with active engagement through
investigating, processing, organising, synthesizing, refining and
extending their knowledge within a topic
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
Although specific definitions of inquiry
vary, key features centre on it being an
active, student centered learning process
whereby questions are formed and time is
given to seek answers.
(Wilson & Wing Jan, 2003).
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
Active learning is not just about doing
things; it about students actively thinking.
A task that sends students off to the
internet to do a bit of ‘Googling’ and
stitch the results together is not a task
that is encouraging active thinking and
questioning.
(Hutchings, 2008)
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
INQUIRY BASED
INTEGRATED
CURRICULUM
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
Features
The sequence follows the inquiry process.
 Begins with students prior knowledge,
perceptions and understandings
 Activities are based around ,moving,
extending, developing these
 Students and teacher draw on a range of
resources and work across domains and
dimensions

Nadine Le Mescam 2008
It’s not step by step.....
Inquiry is not a "method" of doing science, history, or any
other subject, in which the obligatory first stage in a fixed,
linear sequence is that of students each formulating
questions to investigate. Rather, it is an approach to the
chosen themes and topics in which the posing of real
questions is positively encouraged, whenever they occur and
by whoever they are asked. Equally important as the
hallmark of an inquiry approach is that all tentative answers
are taken seriously and are investigated as rigorously as the
circumstances permit.
(Wells, 2001)
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
GENERATIVE TOPICS
UNDERSTANDING
GOALS
Big Ideas or important
broad knowledge
students will develop
during the unit
(May link with
Throughlines)
PERFORMANCES
OF
UNDERSTANDING
Activities and
experiences developed
using/following the
inquiry approach
Significant Content
relating to and
extending students’ life
experiences and
understandings about
the world
Adapted from: The Teaching for
Understanding Framework
(Blythe and Associates, 1998)
ONGOING
ASSESSMENT
Essential in providing
both cumulative and
summative data. For
students, teachers and
learning community
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
Passionate and Purposeful



Inquiries need to go beyond ‘doing’ a topic
They need to be investigations with real purpose
Investigate questions that link to universal concepts:
How does a healthy garden grow?
Links to: change, interdependence, cycles.
Also skills of teamwork and value of responsibility
Murdoch, 2006
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
This has been happening....what we
are seeing...
Murdoch, 2004
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
Planning for Inquiry
Significant content: Framed around
provocative, essential questions rather
than closed ‘topics’.
 What is the difference?

Natural Disasters
vs
How does the Earth work?
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
Generative Topics
Central to one or more domains
 Interesting to students (Varies according to age, social

and cultural contexts, personal interests, and intellectual experiences of
students)
Interesting to the teacher
 Are accessible
 Offer opportunities for multiple
connections
 Have an inexhaustible quality

Blythe and Associate, 1998
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
What do they look like?
Questions:
 What does science mean to us?
 Why war?
 What are the challenges and choices we face in our
lives?
Statements:
 Look after Number 1: How can we care for our
bodies? Why do people harm their bodies?
 Making life easier: How has technology changed our
lives? Does it make life easier?
 The message in the medium: How do we
communicate? How do our messages vary according
to medium?
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
Inquiry needs to be...
...built on key concepts grounded in events and issues
relevant to students‘ lives. For example, assignments
can encourage students to think about certain
everyday activities—the food they consume or the
clothing they purchase—in such a way that they
begin to identify how their actions are embedded in a
larger global context and have widespread
implications. Assignments like this can help make the
global local for students.
(Suarez-Orozco & Sattin, 2007)
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
What is different?
Inquiry involves a shift in our thinking as teachers
Instead of using a theme as an excuse to teach
science, mathematics or reading, these become
tools for exploring knowledge about how the
world works and for researching students own
questions
 The major focus is the inquiry itself, not the
content area distinctions


(Short and Burke, 1996)
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
The Primary Focus of Inquiry
Your aim is to prepare students to
undertake their inquiry, by providing key
shared experiences and developing their
skills within context. They are then able
to formulate questions and seek
understanding with yours and others
help.
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
Imagine....





Trying to learn how to drive from a book or
from lectures from someone else
You study diagrams such as the position of the
brake and accelerator
You read about processes of releasing the clutch
as the accelerator is depressed
You memorize appropriate braking distances
Would you pass the driving test?
(Blythe & Associates, 1998)
TYPES OF INQUIRY

Discuss the table: Can you think of
examples for each? What have you seen
or experienced?

Look at the samples of planners: What
types of inquiries are these?
Nadine Le Mescam 2008
How does Animation work?

WHAT TYPE OF INQUIRY LEARNING IS
THIS?
Essential question: Came from a
conversation in the classroom
 Understandings came from the students:
What do you want to know/understand?

Nadine Le Mescam 2008
NEGOTIATING
THE CURRICULUM
What are our thoughts?
What do we mean by ‘negotiated
curriculum?’
 Why is it worth pursuing?
 What can it look like in action?
 What needs to be in place for negotiated
curriculum to really ‘work’?

Definitions of negotiated curriculum are many
and varied…but generally share common
themes
“Negotiating the curriculum means
classrooms in which teachers invite and
allow students to help construct the
learning journey”
Boomer 1992: 277
“Students develop their own curriculum,
study methods and assessment - built
around questions and issues that are
important to them”
James Beane
Common elements include...
Builds trust and shared decision making
 Managing self and self in relation to others
 Values the learner and their interests
 Level of negotiation is varied
 There is a difference between negotiating
the curriculum, and choosing between
pre-determined choices

Why?





If we own our learning - we learn more
effectively
When we own our learning - we learn how to
learn
True negotiation creates a stronger, more
committed community of learners
A true community of learners is so much easier
to ‘manage’!
We can attend more effectively to individual
needs and strengths
Reasonable limits
 “Absolute freedom”: Every influential proponent of




negotiated curriculum acknowledges there are limits on
what can be negotiated.
Age should not always restrict choice/voice: This prevents
younger children from making choices well within their
capacities.
It can set up a vicious circle if you wait: “It is experience
with decisions that help children become capable of
handling them” (Kohn, 1993).
Structures, modelling, scaffolding, MUST HAPPEN.
The crucial difference between structures and limits, and
control and coercion has gone unrecognized.
Pseudochoice.....
Offering a choice that is ‘loaded’ (Finish
or you will stay in at recess)
 Let them think the are having a say in a
decision that is already made
 Choose from predetermined choices and
tasks designed by the teacher

A Ladder of Citizen
Participation: by Sherry R
Arnstein
Increased degrees of decision
making. Enables them to
negotiate with power-holders,
leading to them having
managerial power at the top
rung.
Allow to ‘have nots’ to hear
and have a voice, however the
power holders still decide.
Designed to ‘educate’ or ‘cure’ by a
greater power
Use the work
samples in
the pack:
Where do
they sit on
the ladder?
From Learner Voice
Handbook: by
Futurelab
Positive effects include





General well being: Sense of control
Behaviour and values: Responsibility, not just
authority and power
Academic achievement: Motivation and
engagement
Teachers: More interesting and rewarding
Intrinsic Value: Democratic learning
communities
What we find....
Students are rarely invited to become
active participants in their own education.
Schooling is typically doing things to
children, not working with them.
Kohn, 1993
Why is this the case?
Grammar of Schooling: teacher and
student roles, curriculum
 Sharing the power
 Keeping track
 Having a go

“If people are given the given the skills
and tools to use, and presented with a
range of potentially powerful educative
experiences, then given freedom, they will
almost invariably choose one and get on
with it. Once learners get in touch with
their own sense of personal power, get
out of their way and watch in awe”
Edwards 2004: encouraging achievement: 3
“The things we steal from children”
(Edwards, 2000)
If I am always the one to think of where to go next,
how will they ever know where to begin?
 If I am the one who is always monitoring progress,
how will they learn to continue their own work?
 If all the marking and editing is done by me, how will
they find ownership, direction and delight in what they
do?
 If I speak of individuals but present learning as if they
are all the same, how will they get to know themselves
as thinkers?

For if they:











Have never experienced being challenged in a safe environment
Have had all of their creative thoughts explained away
Are unaware what catches their interest and how then to have confidence
in their interest
Have never followed anything they are passionate about to a satisfying
conclusion
Have not clarified the way they sabotage their own learning
Are afraid to seek help and do not know who to ask
Have not experienced overcoming their own inertia
Are paralyzed by the need to know everything before writing or acting
Have never got bogged down
Have never failed
Have always played it safe
HOW WILL THEY EVER KNOW WHO THEY ARE?
Some useful references

Beane, J. (1991). ‘The Middle School: The Natural Home of Integrated Curriculum’,
Educational Leadership, 49(2), 9-13.

Beane, J. (1992). Integrated Curriculum in the Middle School, ERIC Digest, 2-3, ED
351095.

Boomer, G., Lester, N., Onore, C., & Cook, J. (eds.), (1992). Negotiating the
Curriculum: Educating for the 21st Century, USA: The Falmer Press.

DEET. (2002). Middle Years Research and Development (MYRAD) Project Executive
Summary, A report to the Learning and Teaching Innovation Division DEET by the
Centre of Applied Educational Research Faculty of Education The University of
Melbourne, February-December 2001.
Murdoch, K. (1998). Classroom Connection: Strategies for Integrated Learning,
Australia: Eleanor Curtain.
Murdoch,K. and Wilson, J.(2004) Learning Links: strategic teaching for the learner
centred classroom. Curric Corp.
Coloroso, B. (2002) Kids are worth it! Quill NY
Brooks, J. and Brooks,M. (1999) The case for constructivist classrooms. ASCD VA
Otero, G. et al: (2001) Relational learning : education for mind body, spirit. Hawker
Brownlow
Edwards, J: the Things we steal from Children:
www.eddept.wa.edu/gifttal/EAGER/Dr%20 Edwards.html





