Scaling Up Design of Inquiry Environments

Date

2021-06

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Routledge

Abstract

Bringing inquiry learning environments to scale is an important issue for society, especially given the needs for stronger inquiry skills among future citizens, employees, and leaders. Scaling up is a complex challenge for any educational innovation, as new pressures emerge as innovations scale. This chapter argues that scaling is particularly challenging for ambitious inquiry learning innovations that often do not find a good fit with prevailing priorities in many of today’s classrooms and communities. Six examples of inquiry learning environments that achieved considerable scale and four additional long-term partnerships illustrate the potential for scaling inquiry learning environments and key requirements for achieving scale . The example projects planned for scaling from the earliest stages of their work. They invested in scaling up for a long period of time, and their approach evolved to incorporate insights gained through their experience in the field. Teams implementing these inquiry learning innovations reflected on which principles helped them reach scale and consolidated their understanding of their approach as a learning activity system; they addressed teacher learning needs; and they built partnerships to sustain support for their approach. The chapter reviews definitions of scaling up, causes of failure, strategies linked to success, and unresolved remaining challenges.

Description

This is a pre-publication draft. Please cite: Roschelle, J., Mazziotti, C. & Means, B. (2021). Scaling Up Design of Inquiry Environments. In C. Chinn & R.G. Duncan et al (Eds.), International Handbook on Learning and Inquiry. Routledge. ISBN 9781138922600

Keywords

scaling up, inquiry, research methodology

Citation

Roschelle, J., Mazziotti, C. & Means, B. (2021). Scaling Up Design of Inquiry Environments. In C. Chinn & R.G. Duncan et al (Eds.), International Handbook on Learning and Inquiry. Routledge. ISBN 9781138922600

DOI