Inquiry-Based Learning

Incoming material is kept when a written question is already waiting for it. The question is written before the source is opened. Purpose decides what is kept, and writing questions is how purpose gets made. Writing a problem and then answering it changes what gets consumed and how that material is thought about.

Without a written question, part of the effort during intake goes to deciding what is relevant, and that sorting runs at the same time as the material arrives. A reader without a question can spend an hour on a source before noticing that no goal was ever set.

Core takeaways

• Write the questions before opening the source. Material is kept when a written question is already waiting for it.
• The routine is called Traffic Light. Red light writes the questions, green light reads to answer them, and the two repeat until most of the topic is covered.
• Each question is there to open several relationships, so green light looks for more than one answer and puts the relationships into non-linear notes.
• The objective is to become familiar with how asking questions changes the processing of new material. Finishing the topic is not the objective.
• The classroom method with the same name is contested, and this routine is substantially modified from it. A self-written question list with a stopping rule is the scaffolded kind of discovery, which comparison research finds can beat explicit instruction.
• After several loops the map is built from the learner’s own judgments about what matters. Its groups come from comparing concepts, not from the order the source used.

Red light: writing the questions

The routine’s house name is Traffic Light. Red light writes the questions and green light answers them. Unfocused intake takes in too much at once, is harder to process, is forgotten quickly, costs the time of relearning, and feels tedious. Red light breaks the habit of reading to consume.

Red light starts with a list of keywords and concepts. The list covers the topic’s main ideas, not every term on the page. Each keyword then gets four stems. The first stem asks which keywords feel most relevant or easiest, and those are where the work starts. The second asks what the learner is curious about. The third asks why this needs knowing. The fourth asks what problem it solves or how it would be applied. Working the stems raises further questions, especially from curiosity, and those get written down too. Red light ends with a written list of questions.

Keywords in: rainfall, drains, soil, paving.
Questions out: why does paving change where the water goes ·
what does saturated soil stop doing · where does a drain fail first ·
how would this street flood differently after a week of rain.

Green light: answering the questions

Green light reads, listens, and searches to answer the questions from red light. It does not try to memorise everything. Each question is there to open several relationships, not to collect a single correct reply, so green light looks for more than one answer to each. The relationships go into the notes, and the notes are messy at first. Every two or three keywords, the map gets simplified and judged for what is worth keeping.

The relationships found are more than a person can hold in the head, so they go on paper, and the notes are non-linear. Non-Linear Note-Making is the note form built to hold them. What gets drawn during green light holds thinking outside the head and makes the flow visible. It does not record a result, so the structure stays provisional until much later. Detail too fine-grained to answer any question goes to rote memorisation for now. That detail is parked until it becomes relevant, not written off.

Running the loop

Green light ends when the questions from red light are answered. Then red light runs again. Each pass surfaces material that raises the next pass’s questions, so the cycle compounds until most of the topic has been covered. Early questions are not going to be good ones. Struggling with them is normal, and the asking continues anyway.

The objective is to become familiar with how asking questions changes the processing of new material. Finishing the topic is not the objective.

The routine costs one pass of question-writing before any reading starts, and notes that stay messy through the middle.

The classroom method with the same name

The mainstream classroom version of inquiry-based learning is contested. There is no agreed definition of what inquiry is, no clear guidance on how to implement it, heavy dependence on the facilitator, and effectiveness that varies widely across studies. Most of that research is aimed at educators and curriculum makers, not at a person studying alone. Comparison research finds that unassisted discovery loses to explicit instruction, and that discovery with feedback, worked examples, and scaffolding can beat it. A self-written question list with a stopping rule is the scaffolded kind, not the unassisted kind. Implemented badly, the classroom version is useless or harmful.

The Traffic Light routine is framed from a cognitivist, self-regulated angle under cognitive load theory. It keeps the part that survives that framing: the written question removes the relevance sort that otherwise runs at the same time as intake. If the routine is treated as the textbook version, the criticisms apply to it.

The Traffic Light routine is substantially modified, and it is not what mainstream research calls inquiry-based learning.

What the map should look like

The starting keyword does not decide the outcome, because working the questions surfaces which keywords are the important ones. Groups come from comparing concepts against each other. They do not come from the order the source presented them in, and they do not come from what was assumed before starting. A map that keeps reproducing the source’s own arrangement means the questions are not doing the work yet.

Order Control is the order the questions pull, set against the order the source is arranged in. Survive and Thrive is why building relationships is what gets knowledge kept. Higher Order Learning is comparing, judging, and connecting, which is what the questions are for.

After several loops the map is a structure built from the learner’s own judgments about what matters. That map is the result of keeping only the material a written question was waiting for. The same loop tightens later inside the Bear Hunter System: aim takes over from red light, and shoot takes over from green light.

How to practice this

1. Before opening the source, write a list of keywords and concepts for the topic. Cover the main ideas, not every term on the page. Notice which keywords feel most relevant or easiest, because the questions start there.
2. Ask of each keyword what you are curious about, why it needs knowing, and what problem it solves. Write down the further questions the stems raise, especially the ones from curiosity. Notice that you now hold a written list of questions and have read nothing yet.
3. Read, listen, and search to answer the questions on the list. Look for more than one answer to each question. Notice that each question opens several relationships instead of one correct reply.
4. Write the relationships into non-linear notes and let them stay messy. Every two or three keywords, simplify the map and judge what is worth keeping. Notice that the relationships are more than you can hold in your head.
5. Set aside detail too fine to answer any question, for rote memorisation later. Notice that it stays parked until a question makes it relevant.
6. When the questions are answered, write the next list of questions from what the pass surfaced. Notice that the early questions are not good ones, and keep asking anyway. Notice whether the map copies the source’s own order, because that means the questions are not working yet.

Sources

• Pressley, McDaniel, Turnure, Wood & Ahmad (1987): elaborative interrogation. Answering why-questions about material improves memory for it.
• Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan & Willingham (2013), Psychological Science in the Public Interest 14(1): practice testing and elaborative interrogation as moderate-utility techniques.
• Slamecka & Graf (1978): the generation effect. Material produced by the learner is retained better than material only read.
• Loewenstein (1994), Psychological Bulletin 116(1): curiosity as an information gap.
• Kirschner, Sweller & Clark (2006), Educational Psychologist 41(2):75–86. Minimally guided instruction overloads working memory. The classroom form of inquiry is the contested object.
• Alfieri, Brooks, Aldrich & Tenenbaum (2011), Journal of Educational Psychology 103(1): unassisted discovery loses to explicit instruction. Enhanced discovery (feedback, worked examples, scaffolding) can beat it.
• Rönnebeck, Bernholt & Ropohl (2016), Studies in Science Education 52(2): no common ground on what “inquiry” is.
• Sweller (2021), Centre for Independent Studies, Why Inquiry-based Approaches Harm Students’ Learning: the classroom version, implemented as minimally guided search, is argued to harm learning.