Scaffolding supports beginning efforts to implement inquiry in the classroom

F or science teachers, implementing inquiry for the first time can seem intimidating. Inquiry-based curriculum requires teachers to design experiences that engage students in scientific phenomena through direct observation, data gathering, and analysis of evidence. Replacing familiar routines and conventional methods with inquiry may seem outside of a teacher’s budget, unpredictable, less structured, and more difficult to manage. Appropriately scaffolded inquiry, however, can provide a smooth transition. Teachers who are considering inquiry as an instructional technique for the first time should incrementally apply variations of inquiry, depending on the needs and level of their students. The scaffolding described in Figure 1 (p. 50) allows teachers to adjust from highly structured environments and teacher-directed inquiry to less structured environments with student-directed inquiry.