Inquiry-Based Teaching and Learning
What this domain tests
Inquiry-based teaching is the MYP's default pedagogy. Exam items ask you to distinguish inquiry from activity, design conceptual questions, and explain the teacher's role in a student-centred classroom.
Core rules and concepts
- Inquiry is purposeful, structured and evidence-seeking. It can be structured, guided or open, but it is always planned toward a conceptual outcome.
- The unit's statement of inquiry sets the conceptual direction; factual, conceptual and debatable questions organise the inquiry.
- Effective inquiry starts with a provocation or authentic problem that creates a need to know.
- The teacher scaffolds: models thinking, teaches ATL skills, provides protocols, and intervenes when misconceptions block progress.
- Inquiry is not a free-for-all. Students still need disciplinary knowledge and explicit feedback.
- Reflection closes the cycle: What did we find? How do we know? What else follows?
Worked example
A science teacher opens with 'What is photosynthesis?' That is factual only. To build an inquiry, the teacher adds a provocation: a sealed terrarium that has been in the dark for a week. Conceptual question: 'How do living systems transform energy?' Debatable: 'Should cities invest in vertical farms?' Students design a controlled comparison, record data, and revise their explanation. The factual question remains, but it now serves a conceptual and debatable inquiry.
Traps that cost marks
- Equating inquiry with discovery learning and removing all teacher guidance.
- Writing only factual questions; examiners look for conceptual and debatable thinking.
- Planning activities that are busy but not connected to the statement of inquiry.
- Treating reflection as a lesson-ending gimmick rather than evidence of learning.
- Ignoring ATL: inquiry depends on explicitly taught research, thinking and self-management skills.