The final stage of the inquiry process is “taking action”.

 What kind of action do we hope to inspire the children to take?

I have had the experience of working in different inquiry-based schools. The thing that I find interesting is that, for some schools, the teachers start planning (as much as they can anyway) the unit of inquiry and they keep referring to what kind of action they want the children to take at the end of the inquiry: As summative assessment; to show that they have learnt.

 Successful inquiry leads to responsible action initiated by students.

Often this comes in the form of raising money for some new awareness that the students have. Whilst occasionally this can be a good solution , it is not a viable way for students to ‘take action’ in every inquiry that they embark on. You also have to wonder, what kind of message does this teach our students?

We know that taking meaningful action connects students to their local and global communities, which in turn improves engagement and learning as the skills and topics are relevant to themselves. But action does not always mean fundraising. The poster above shows different ways that students can take action.

Do you think that some actions should be more sought than others?