Inquiry vs. Direct Instruction: What’s Better?

As a pattern seeker, I constantly ask myself: What are the core ideas at the heart of the situation? It’s a superpower for grasping complex topics. 

When I notice debate and frustration in any situation, I wonder if all involved agree on the critical attributes of the core ideas at play. The answer is usually: no.  

Lately the topic of ‘inquiry’ is one of those situations. 

•  “How do we fit the content and skills that we have to teach into the inquiry?” 

• “How do we clear up student misconceptions if we can’t do direct instruction?”

• “Is the ACT model for Conceptual Transfer an inquiry approach?” 

These are some of the questions teachers pose when schools are on the journey of updating teaching for our ever-changing world. To me, they display some murkiness and need clarification.

First, let’s distinguish between two areas of formal learning where teachers spend a lot of time: Planning and Instruction. 

Questions to ask are: 

• How involved is the teacher or other adults in the planning process? 

• How involved is the teacher in the instruction process? 

‘Inquiry’ is an umbrella term that exists along a continuum of how involved the teacher is in both the planning and the instruction, as shown in the visual below from Learning That Transfers, page 180. 

Planning: In structured and controlled inquiry, teachers certainly plan for the content and skills they want students to gain. In guided inquiry, teacher planning involves more open-ended or general outcomes of learning. Teachers give students choice in the direction the journey might take. In free inquiry, there is even less teacher control over the outcomes of learning. 

We can generally assume that in schools where standards of learning are used, it is usually not free inquiry for most of the year.

Instruction:Teachers put more effort into gently leading students to the learning outcomes set out in the planning stage in structured and controlled inquiry. This doesn’t mean teachers “tell” the outcomes to students explicitly. Through open yet carefully crafted questions, prompts, experiences, and instructional materials, students are expected to construct and demonstrate the learning outcomes from the planning phase. Importantly, even in the most free inquiry settings, teachers can still notice and clear up student misconceptions. Open or free inquiry does not mean students can make up new facts.

When it comes to the question about which is better: inquiry vs direct instruction, the answer depends on two factors: 

1. How rigidly you interpret each of those approaches. 

2. Your general outlook about formal learning.

For point number 1, I personally think inquiry is compatible with occasional direct instruction. We can certainly explain things to students and still be inquiry teachers. As a rough percentage of instruction time, I would say around 20% or less of instruction should be explicit teacher explanations. 

For instance, I am explaining in this article— but it was written in response to teacher questions. And my hope is that you are reading it because you have some interest in this topic. 

That leads to point number 2. 

Rate yourself on a scale from 1 to 10 on the following statements.

Strongly Agree 1 ←→ 10 Strongly Disagree 

1. Our primary job as teachers can be summed up as getting students to understand, know, and be able to do what the teacher understands, knows, and is able to do. 

2. Students’ attitudes about learning and knowing how to learn are not as important as explicit knowledge and discrete skills. 

3. It doesn’t matter all that much how students feel about the teacher or the learning process, as long as they learn the material. 

If you strongly agreed with at least two of those statements, you would probably not be happy at a school that uses or is moving toward an inquiry approach. 

I prefer to think of inquiry as a philosophical stance more than a rigid process to follow. Proponents of inquiry almost always believe that: 

• Our primary job as teachers is to help each young person in our care to develop and grow into the best version of themselves, both within the learning targets of our class or course and overall in their lives. 

• Fostering a love of learning and knowing how to learn are just as important as explicit knowledge and discrete skills.

• All students are thinking, feeling beings, who deserve to be in the driver’s seat of their own learning and their own destiny. 
  If you agree with those statements, you can safely call yourself an inquiry teacher. 

Now, how does all of this relate to conceptual learning and transfer of learning?
Whether you are an inquiry teacher or not, this is what I believe: 

Teaching students via transferable concepts is the most intellectually rigorous way to teach anything in any context. 

Even if your primary job is to get students to know, understand, and do at a very high level – for instance IB Diploma or Career courses (DP & CP), Advanced Placement (AP) courses, or the British GCSE – teaching conceptually is going to yield better results than not teaching conceptually. So, technically, one could use the ACT model with significantly more than 20% direct instruction instead of an inquiry approach. Students in these courses are often self-motivated (even if it is for a certain score), and therefore put in the intellectual effort even when the teacher does not set up instruction to best foster effort. 

AND – astute inquiry teachers will notice that the ACT model is also completely aligned with inquiry. The Acquire stage suggests strategies such as notice and wonder, concept attainment, affinity mapping, what’s all true, four corners, and more – all of which can and should be used to ‘tune students into’ the learning. And importantly, chapter 6 of Learning That Transfers (unit planning) includes the importance of writing ‘compelling questions’ – understandable, authentic, open, and important – to invite students into the learning journey. 

And of course the connect and transfer phases are completely aligned to ‘sorting out,’ ‘going further’ and ‘reflecting and acting.’ 

Here are rough alignments between Kath Murdoch’s Inquiry Cycle and the ACT Model: 

If you take the instructional strategies from my books and inquiry books such as Kath Murdoch’s, you get double the number of ideas. 

And here’s the part that makes me even more evangelical about teaching via conceptual transfer.