Investigating Inquiry-Based Pedagogies in the Context of Standards-Based Reforms

Louise Jennings

Across the country, schools are implementing large-scale reforms driven by legislative mandates for accountability, measured largely though standardized tests. At the same time, professional organizations call for classroom instruction steeped in purposeful inquiry. Inquiry-based pedagogies promote the development and use of literacy tools (e.g., observational motes, graphs) and inquiry practices (e.g., computing data, writing historical accounts) as students work in the manner of scientists, social scientists, mathematicians, and authors. Students and teachers create knowledge in an emergent curriculum while developing “basic skills” through inquiry-oriented practices while meeting the demands of standardization and standards-based reform. Since 1996, Louise Jennings has been examining inquiry-based practices through collaborative research at a public, magnet school by tracing the educational experiences of a cohort of students from kindergarten through fifth grade. By building on the 4-year data set that examines inquiry practices before state-legislated accountability measures were in place, Jennings will examine how these reforms influence inquiry-based instructional practices from 2000-2002. The fellowship supports analysis of existing longitudinal data and a final year of data collection to address three questions: 1) How do a cohort of students and their teachers co-construct an inquiry-related pedagogy? 2) What happens to this pedagogy in the face of large-scale accountability reforms? 3) How do teachers address the standards requirements while still engaging students in inquiry-oriented pedagogies, and how do these efforts influence opportunities for learning? As educators across the US struggle to address accountability requirements while engaging children in am emergent curriculum, findings from this study will inform practice and also contribute to theories of inquiry-based learning, classroom discourse, and participatory classroom practices.

About Louise Jennings

Louise Jennings is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of South Carolina, where she teaches qualitative research methods, multicultural education, and social foundations of education. Her research focuses on the social construction of learning and social responsibility through inquiry-based and liberatory pedagogies. In addition to the longitudinal classroom research supported by the fellowship, Louise is collaborating on an interdisciplinary team to investigate and develop community-based youth empowerment programs in South Carolina.