Inquiry learning involves teachers starting with a series of scenarios, questions, and problems for students to navigate, rather than presenting information or instructions directly.
“Helping teachers replace trendy, evidence-free practices with proven, effective instruction will increase student outcomes,” Powell said.
The report argues for explicitly teaching students math skills first and then encouraging independent practice and application of the skills.
“While some students may thrive in true inquiry-based learning, their success is an exception rather than the standard outcome,” the report said.
Australian Catholic University STEM Research Director Professor Vince Geiger said teachers should be able to incorporate both explicit teaching and inquiry learning into their teaching. He said the research paper appeared to reflect a very specific point of view.
“It amazes me when people put these ideas as a juxtaposition,” he said. “The best teachers I know take the position that you need to do some of both.”
Geiger said the PISA results indicated that Australian students were not falling short in their procedural math skills, but rather in reasoning and problem solving.
“We need to get our kids better at adaptive-type thinking — taking what they learn in the classroom and being able to apply it to different situations and contexts and real-world situations,” he said. “Explicit teaching alone will not get them there.”
Debate over the merits of inquiry-based mathematics learning and explicit teaching divided the profession during a recent debate over Australia’s proposed new national curriculum.
Northholm Grammar School’s head of maths, Phil Waldron, said his school had a strong focus on direct instruction, where each step of a maths problem was modeled directly by a teacher for students, which was producing excellent results.
“The report reinforces the idea that student understanding is developed by the teacher and that it is easy for teachers to take students’ knowledge for granted and therefore miss steps in instruction,” he said.
“The problem with inquiry learning is that often students are left to figure it out for themselves and it’s all based on prior understanding and contextual understanding for them.
“You always need a foundation, you can’t start with research, students need a level of understanding before they start thinking for themselves.”
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Waldron said inquiry learning was promoted as best practice through her teacher training at the university.
“I’ve been blessed with a career experience that was kind of the opposite of what I came out of college with,” he said. “And now the evidence suggests that what these senior staff members were doing is, in fact, the best way.”
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