Planning for inquiry

Planning with regulatory cards

Planning with regulatory cards gives you an insight into the potential of an inquiry prompt. Even if you run a structured inquiry without the cards, the process of mapping out lines of inquiry from regulatory statements can make you more responsive to students' ideas and more confident to change course in the classroom.

After you have chosen a prompt and identified relevant knowledge your class will bring to the inquiry, use the regulatory cards planning sheet to work out the meaning of each card in the context of the inquiry (see the slides for an example).

Alongside mathematical cards linked to the prompt, you choose 'social' cards, which focus on how to inquire, based on your students' experience of inquiry. The class then uses the set of cards as part of a guided inquiry.

Examples of inquiries planned with the regulatory cards are the Length of an arc inquiry and the Grouped data inquiry.

Planning for inquiry slides

Key questions

Audrey Stafford (a teacher in Niagara Falls, New York) contacted Inquiry Maths to request a lesson plan template. Audrey teaches 5th grade in upper elementary and reports that inquiry teaching is becoming more popular in the US.

The planning sheet contains key questions you might consider before using an Inquiry Maths prompt. You can download and edit the sheet to make it suitable for your purposes. There are links to additional information and advice on the website.

Planning for inquiry questions.docx

Would your students learn best through a structured, guided, or open inquiry? Read about the different levels and decide which one is appropriate for your class.

Andrew Blair's article in Mathematics Teaching considers the planning required for inquiry and the teacher's openness to ‘unplanning’ as the inquiry develops.

In your planning you have not anticipated the students' responses to the prompt. Perhaps the responses are too diverse to know where to start. What do you do?

Developing inquiry habits of mind

Hamdi Ahmed, a teacher in north London (UK), designed the Habits of Mind poster. The inner ring displays specifically mathematical habits of mind, while the outer ring shows more general habits of mind that are developed through inquiry.

When planning an Inquiry Maths lesson, Hamdi focuses on one of the habits to develop with her students.

She says that the most important is the management of impulsivity. When students notice something in a prompt, they often want to dive in and explore without first thinking of the best way to inquire. The regulatory cards help students learn how to direct their inquiries.

Inquiry Maths habits of mind poster.pdf

Other approaches to planning

Planning with an organiser

When Richard Glennie, a teacher of mathematics at Levenmouth Academy (Fife, Scotland), started using Inquiry Maths prompts he devised a structured approach to classroom inquiry. Richard divided each inquiry into four stages: notice, wonder, explore, and found. He designed an organiser so that students could keep a record of their inquiries as they passed from one stage to the next (see examples on the right-angled triangles inquiry page.)

Richard also used the organiser to plan the inquiry, replacing the final stage with learn. His notes (pictured) cover the whole inquiry from which he planned separate lessons. The plan includes what students might notice, key questions related to the inquiry and prompt questions that encourage further thinking, lines of inquiry, and the learning intentions behind the inquiry.

January 2024

Planning lines of inquiry

Michael Shkurka and Robert England, teachers of mathematics at the British International School of Bratislava, created the mind-map (pictured) during a departmental training day about Inquiry Maths. Participants planned an inquiry in pairs with each teacher having a specific class in mind. The pairs chose a suitable prompt to explore, mapped out possible lines of inquiry, and selected regulatory cards that students could use to direct the inquiry. They decided what each card would look like in classroom inquiry and, where necessary, planned the use of a relevant task or resource.

February 2020

Mathematics inquiry template

Amelia O'Brien, a grade 6 PYP teacher at the Luanda International School (Angola), has shared her Mathematics Inquiry Template with Inquiry Maths. The template helps students think about concepts relevant to the prompt and plan the inquiry.

In their most recent inquiry, Amelia's pupils posed generative questions that opened up new pathways for inquiry (see 'Question-driven inquiry' on the 4-by-3 rectangle inquiry page.)

December 2016

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