Creando Comunidades de Indagación (Creating Communities of Inquiry)

A collaboration between Project Zero and Innova Schools Network to develop a culture of inquiry-driven teaching and learning.

IN: Cognition, Thinking & Understanding - Collaboration & Group Learning - Leadership & Organizational Learning - Adult & Lifelong Learning

Overview

Creando Comunidades de Indagación (Creating Communities of Inquiry) is a collaborative investigation that engages Project Zero researchers with educators and administrators from the Innova Schools network of Peru, a highly centralized and rapidly expanding network that seeks to offer families high quality yet affordable K-12 education. Inspired by educator tools and group processes developed through the Creating Communities of Innovation research initiative, this investigation began in 2018 with the goal of supporting educators and administrators in developing a culture of inquiry-driven teaching and learning —an approach to education that, within the context of this research, supports questioning, careful listening, critical thinking, and experimentation. For its first two years, the project explored the structures, processes, and practices that influence and promote a culture of inquiry-driven teaching and learning in this kind of context, the dispositions and shifts in mindset associated with the development of such a culture, and interventions to support educators and administrators in this work.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the project focus pivoted in spring 2020 to address the role of inquiry-based teaching and learning in online, project-based learning (PBL). This phase of the work aims to take a network-level view of Innova’s entry into online PBL and the related opportunities and tensions for promoting inquiry-based teaching and learning. Research questions include:

What aspects of inquiry-driven and PBL-inspired teaching and learning are relatively easy to spread in this context, and why?
What aspects of inquiry-driven and PBL-inspired teaching and learning are particularly difficult to spread, and why?
What are some of the challenges or tensions that have to be navigated at different levels of the organization, and how do individuals or groups within the organization do so?
What are some specific tools and practices that can promote inquiry-driven and PBL-inspired pedagogies in an online teaching context?

This work will culminate in vignettes of practice, tools, and other writings in Spanish and English that aim to help others learn from Innova’s work and consider opportunities, challenges, and tools related to inquiry-based teaching and learning in their own online and offline teaching and learning contexts.