One morning, as Mrs.

Gupta's fourth grade class is settling

down to their arithmetic workbooks, she calls their attention.
As they raise their eyes toward her, a light bulb directly over
Mrs. Harrison's desk blows out, and the room darkens.

"What happened?" asks one child.

"Can't you see, dopey?" remarks another. "The light bulb blew
out."
"Yeah," inquires another, "but what does that mean?"
"What do you mean, 'What does that mean?'"
"Just that. We have all seen a lot of light bulbs blow out, but
what does that really mean? What happens?“

Mrs. Gupta unscrews the light bulb and holds it up. The
children gather around, and she passes it among them. After
she receives it, she says, "Well, why don't you see if you can
develop a hypothesis about what happened?“
"What's inside the glass?'' asks one of the children.
“I’m afraid I can’t answer that.” she replies. “Can you put
it another way?”
“Is there air inside the glass?” one questions.
“No,” says Mrs. Gupta
“Is there a gas inside?” asks another.
"No," says Mrs. Gupta. The children look at one another
in puzzlement. Finally, one asks, “Is it a vacuum?"
"Yes," nods Mrs. Gupta.
"Is it a complete vacuum?" someone inquires.
"Almost," replies Mrs. Gupta.
"What is that little wire made of?" asks another student.
"I can't answer that," says Mrs. Gupta. "Can you put it
another way?"
"Is the little wire made of metal?"
"Yes," she agrees.
Asking questions such as these, the children gradually
identify the materials that make up the light bulb and the
events that took place. Finally, they begin to venture
hypotheses about what happened. After they have generated
four or five of these, they search through reference books in
an effort to verify them.

Q. What had taken place in the classroom?

Q. What type of interaction took place
between the teacher and the students?
INQUIRY TRAINING MODEL
ITM
 Inquiry training was developed by Richard Suchman to
teach students a process for investigating and explaining
unusual phenomena.
 Suchman's model takes students through miniature
versions of the kinds of procedures that scholars use to
organize knowledge and generate principles. Based on a
conception of scientific method, it attempts to teach
students some of the skills and language of scholarly
inquiry (Suchman, 1962).
WHERE DID INQUIRY COME FROM?
 Ancient philosopher Socrates used to ask
various questions to his students. Students
learned from those questions.
 Inquiry training model gives more
emphasis on developing awareness of and
mastering the inquiry process.
GOAL
 The general goal of inquiry training is to
help students develop the intellectual
discipline and skills necessary to raise
questions and search out answers
stemming from their curiosity. Thus,
Suchman is interested in helping students
inquire independently, but in a disciplined
way.
ASSUMPTIONS
 Students inquire naturally when they are puzzled.
 They can become conscious of and learn to analyze
their thinking strategies.
 New strategies can be taught directly and added to
the students' existing ones.
 Cooperative inquiry enriches thinking and helps
students to learn about the tentative, emergent
nature of knowledge and to appreciate alternative
explanations.
Syntax of the lnquiry Training Model

PHASE ONE: PHASE TWO:

CONFRONTATION WITH DATA GATHERING-
THE PROBLEM VERIFICATION

Explain Inquiry procedures. Verify the nature of objects and conditions.

Present discrepant event. Verify the occurrence of the problem situation.

PHASE THREE: PHASE FOUR:

DATA GATHERING- ORGANIZING, FORMULATING
EXPERIMENTATION AN EXPLANATION

Isolate relevant variables. Formulate rules or explanations.

Hypothesize (and test)
causal relationships.

PHASE FIVE:
ANALYSIS OF THE INQUIRY PROCESS
Analyze Inquiry strategy and
develop more effective ones.
SOCIAL SYSTEM
 ITM can be highly structured, with the teacher
controlling the interaction and prescribing the inquiry
procedures.
 The norms of inquiry are those of cooperation,
intellectual freedom and equality.
 Interaction among students should encouraged.

 The intellectual environment is open to all relevant

ideas, and teachers and students should participate as
equals where ideas are concerned.
PRINCIPLES OF REACTION
 Ensure that questions are
phrased so they can be
answered with yeses or nos.
 Ask students to rephrase
invalid questions.
 Point out invalidated points
– for example, “We have not
established that this is
liquid.”
 Use the language of the
inquiry process- for instance,
identify student questions as
theories and invite testing
(experimenting)
 Try to provide a free
intellectual environment
by not evaluating student
theories.
 Press students to make
clearer statements of
theories and provide
support for their
generalizations.
 Encourage interaction
among students.
SUPPORT SYSTEM
The optimal support is a set of
confronting materials, a teacher who
understands the intellectual processes
and strategies of inquiry and resource
materials bearing on the problem.
APPLICATION
 This model is generally used in teaching for scientific subjects.
Inquiry training model is very useful in the subjects of natural
sciences.
 The student learns to analyze the various type of collected
information.
 Any topic from a curriculum area which can be converted into
problem situation or puzzle can be selected for inquiry training.
 This model of teaching is also useful for the other subjects on
the basis of utilization of its procedure.
 Any area or topic, unit or information related to the desired
subject could be formulated as a puzzling situation for the
learners to conduct an inquiry.
 Instructional

Nurturant `Scientific
process
`Strategies for
creative inquiry

`Spirit of creativity

`Independence of
autonomy in
learning
Tentative nature of
Tolerance of
knowledge
ambiguity