Practicing a Mini-Inquiry Cycle

In Lesson 1, you were introduced to inquiry. The inquiry process is often conceptualized as a cycle (see image below).

In this lesson, we are going to practice the inquiry cycle.

Develop a Wondering

Inquiry questions, or wonderings, are questions that arise from our everyday teaching. They are manageable, open-ended questions that are connected to our interests and passions as educators.

In this case, we will all be investigating the same inquiry question or wondering: Who are we as a community of educators and inquirers?

Collect or Generate Data

Data collection or generation just means capturing (and trying to hold it still) information that will help us answer our questions. This doesn’t necessarily mean creating surveys or tests that will generate huge quantities of data. In fact, we suggest trying to capture data that is a part of your teaching already vs. generating new data apart from what you would typically do in the classroom.

In this case, we have also already collected data: The identity work you each did in your small groups.

Analyze Data

Keep working through this lesson to learn more!