Growing Learners As Researchers Toolkit

How do we slow down the inquiry process to focus on growing more thoughtful research skills before learners rush to doing a project/assignment? This toolkit focuses on the posing and pursuing of questions as a deliberate set of skills and habits that can be used across grade levels and content areas. The five P&Ps (processes and practices) provide a workflow to engage learners in generating questions, sorting through multiple sources, synthesizing and summarizing their learning before imagining a way to communicate their findings.

Tool 1: Awakening Curiosity

This protocol is designed to slow down learners’ thinking as they become curious about a topic, phenomenon, or concept.

Tool 2: Crafting Compelling Questions

This process is designed to deepen engagement with research to grow more sophisticated and compelling questions.

Tool 3: Growing Through the Inquiry Spiral

The inquiry spiral provides a series of steps, with suggested dispositions and metacognitive questions, that lead the learner through a process of generating, refining, and refocusing their questions to further their research.

Tool 4: Examining Research Sources and Documenting Information

This process offers suggested ways to organize and guide learners’ documentation of information by clarifying each source, key details, and impact on thinking.

Tool 5: Bridging Synthesis of Research to Possible Creation

This process and practice offers a bridge to a demonstration (e.g., performance, media presentation, essay) that is launched based on the investigative inquiry they pursued.