SUPPORT FOR INQUIRY IN THE CLASSROOM
For school cultures where students are not traditionally engaged in inquiry, it can be difficult to understand the concept of inquiry. The definition of ‘inquiry’ is elusive, even more so when translation is involved. To provide further guidance and clarity, this article has looked at three essential characteristics of inquiry: 1) student questioning: In an inquiry process, student learning is part of a continuing cycle of question-answer-question-answer, 2) valuing student mistakes: The learning process takes into account the need for students to make mistakes and the environment should be safe for students to make mistakes, 3) variety of student work: Since student questions and lines of inquiry will be varied, the outcome of inquiry in terms of student work will provide different answers and look different for each student (or groups of students, if they work together).