Date of Award

Fall 2021

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Department

Educational Studies

First Advisor

Leigh Kale D’Amicco

Abstract

Teaching and learning need to move away from a transactional model found in a traditional classroom to support the growth of 21st century skills and abilities. Inquiry-based teaching is a model that places the student at the center of instruction and allows the teacher to facilitate and guide learning. The classroom fueled by inquiry is a classroom that (a) breaks free from the traditional and transactional model to promote connections to past knowledge and build new understandings, (b) allows students to direct their own learning, and (c) promotes moments of self-reflection and metacognition. The purpose of this study was to document the implementation of the 5Es inquiry-based teaching model in a secondary English language arts classroom. The study answers the following three questions: (a) How will the inquiry-based teaching model influence the design of curriculum and instruction in a secondary English language arts classroom? (b) What will inquiry-based instruction look like in a secondary English language arts classroom? and (c) Will students engage with the model and demonstrate strong participation in each step to generate new understanding of material, thoughts, and ideas? By using formal inquiry templates for planning, designing authentic and engaging lessons, and providing informal check-ins regarding self-reflection, students moved through the five phases of inquiry-based learning: (1) engage, (2) explore, (3) explain, (4) elaborate, and (5) evaluate (Bybee, et al., 2006). This study also examined the role of the instructor in the model.

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