Teaching with Inquiry: Increasing Student Engagement across Disciplines

Inquiry Learning is an innovative, hands-on, and collaborative approach to student learning. The Inquiry Learning Model shifts the heavy cognitive lifting from the teacher to the student. Documents and artifacts are used to provoke deep analysis and hone critical-thinking skills as students work in teams to interpret and connect clues to solve a mystery. A detailed step-by-step methodology is provided as well as six multidisciplinary lessons. Lessons are suitable for collaborative teaching or stand alone in discipline specific classes. For example, Exploitation and Immortality: The Story of Henrietta Lacks, is a lesson that can be used in the science, social studies, English or math classroom, or a combination of any of these disciplines. In addition to the methodology and lessons, Teaching with Inquiry includes differentiation strategies to adapt lessons to all learners, suggestions for lesson use in multiple disciplines, and a variety of graphic organizers to help students organize, process, and summarize the information throughout the lesson.

Catherine Snyder is an associate professor of education at Clarkson University. Her work in the field of inquiry learning encompasses her work with her teacher education graduate students, as well as several publications and presentations around the globe.

Mary Eads has been teaching social studies for 33 years. She is National Board Certified and has worked as an adjunct professor at Clarkson University. Patricia Rand is a National Board certified teacher who taught high school English for fifteen years before becoming a teacher educator.

Sean O'Connell has been teaching for over thirty years as both a special educator and social studies classroom teacher. Sean is certified on both Special Education and Social Studies and is a National Board Certified Educator. He has received the Murray Excellence in Teaching award at Niskayuna High School, and an Excellence in Teaching Award from the State University of New York at Albany.

Richard Lasselle has been teaching for 36 years. He has taught science at the middle school level, physics, chemistry, and Earth science. His current role is as an assistant professor of STEM Education at Clarkson University in Schenectady, NY Sean O'Connell has been teaching for over thirty years as both a special educator and social studies classroom teacher. Sean is certified on both Special Education and Social Studies and is a National Board Certified Educator. He has received the Murray Excellence in Teaching award at Niskayuna High School, and an Excellence in Teaching Award from the State University of New York at Albany.

Sherri Duan is an Assistant Professor at Clarkson University, where she teaches Chinese Grammar & Linguistics and Curriculum and Methods in Teaching Chinese. In 2020, she received Outstanding Teaching Award from Clarkson University Student Association and the book, Research on “Jiang” Constructions from pre-Qin to Sui-Tang Dynasties, published by Nankai University Press in 2019.