1. Inquiry learning What happens in an IBL classroom?
Tool IA-1T: Characterising an IBL classroom
© 2016 mascil project (G.A. no ). Lead partner University of Nottingham; CC-NC-SA 4.0 license granted. The project mascil has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/ ).

2. Teachers and students in an IBL classroom
Discuss your responses
Make a note of your main points
Bring the group together for a whole-group discussion of where they observed the characteristics of IBL in this lesson.
You may wish to ask them to contrast this with teaching they have observed in schools recently.

3. Overview
Aim:
To consider the characteristics of classrooms where students are engaged in inquiry learning.
We will:
Observe an IBL lesson (video) to see inquiry approaches being used;
Discuss the characteristics of classrooms where IBL approaches are used.
This tool allows groups to consider the characteristics of classrooms where students are engaged in inquiry based learning. Trainees will watch a video which exemplifies an IBL lesson in which students are working on the problem ‘Building with plastic bottles in Honduras’. They are then asked to think about the main characteristics of the lesson and how they compare to IBL approaches.

4. Teachers and students in an IBL classroom
What are the main features of this lesson?
What does the teacher do?
What are the students doing?
Show video of an IBL lesson: ‘Building with plastic bottles in Honduras’. Ask the trainees to look out for the main features of the lesson, observe what the teacher does, what the students do, and make a note of where they see each of the main characteristics of IBL.
Ask them to work in groups to think about the main characteristics of the lesson and how they compare to IBL approaches. Ask groups to prepare a poster that sets out the key aspects of IBL approaches that they have identified and agreed.

5. Characteristics of an IBL lesson
It is generally agreed that in classrooms that use IBL approaches, the following will be seen.
Student led inquiry
Tackling unstructured problems
Learning concepts through IBL
Questioning that promotes reasoning
Students working collaboratively
Building on what students already know
Self and peer assessment
Show the trainees this list of characteristics of IBL approaches:
• Student led inquiry
• Tackling unstructured problems
• Learning concepts through IBL
• Questioning that promotes reasoning
• Students working collaboratively
• Building on what students already know
• Self and peer assessment
Certain characteristics have been identified as being important by the Mascil team and these are shown on the handout Characteristics of IBL (and on the following slide)

6. Characteristics of IBL
Mascil building on the work of the PRIMAS project has identified these important characteristics of IBL and additionally how the world of work might be connected to such learning. You can use this diagram to add texture to the list discussed previously.
Further discussion of issues in relation to possible concerns about how inquiry practices might be implemented can follow a return to discussion about the lesson that the group have observed.

7. Identifying IBL characteristics
What were the main features of the lesson?
Where did you see characteristics of IBL?
Ask trainees to work in pairs to reflect on the main features of the lesson and where they saw the characteristics of IBL in the lesson.

8. Problems and issues
Read the brief extract from a paper by Artigue and Blomhøj:
Which of these issues and concerns are most applicable in your country or region?
Why is that?
Can they be overcome?
Should they be overcome?
The article by Artigue and Blomhøj which was in the 2013 Special Issue of ZDM about IBL raises some concerns and issues about conceptualising inquiry based mathematics education in different settings. If you have an opportunity ask the group to read the article and consider:
Which of these issues and concerns are most applicable in their situation? Why is that?
Can they be overcome?
Should they be overcome?

9. Finishing off
Watch some of the videos of inquiry lessons found here Read more about IBL in the ZDM special issue
Encourage your trainees to
watch some of the videos of inquiry lessons found here <<give web address>>
Read more about IBL in the ZDM special issue about this: