The YPP Action Frame with Inquiry-Based Learning II: "Small Inquiry" and "Big Inquiry"

By Chaebong Nam

Now, how does this inquiry-cycle pertain to operating the YPP Action Frame?(Check a related post, "The YPP Action Frame with Inquiry-Based Learning I" as well.) The Action Frame turns itself into a big inquiry cycle that begins with a profound question: “Why does it matter to me?” The remaining questions aim to guide civic actors to design successful political participation (by successful we mean effective, equitable, and self-protective, discussed in "What We Value: Equity, Efficacy, and Self-Protection"). We approach this topic as small inquiry and big inquiry.

Inquiry Cycle
Inquiry Cycle (cited from Chip Bruce's "What is inquiry-based learning?"
 

Figure 1 Inquiry Cycle  (cited from “What is inquiry-based learning?”)

“Small Inquiry”

On a micro level, each question becomes an opening question for the small inquiry. I fleshed out an example of a small inquiry for “#2 How Much Should I Share?” in Table 1. As to the opening question, inquirers (who could be a group of individuals) ask themselves what disrupts their peace on this issue, which is a new indeterminate situation. The question can be customized as, “What interests us most about this matter?” Individuals also need to think about the goals they want to reach in the end. For investigation, an inquirer focuses on issues: “What are the most effective strategies to achieve this goal?” or “What are the tools available for change?” And they execute their strategies and tools to answer the questions.

In the wake of investigation, people can create tangible products imperative to further meaning-making, according to the following steps. They literally can have any kind of outcome, intended or collateral, ranging from new collaborations, codes of conduct or protocols for self-protection, and posters to media-enabled stories and more. These concrete products become important media for further discussion with outsiders, as well as with fellow inquirers who are likely to be insiders. Bruce and Bishop (2008) in particular viewed this discussion process as developing inquiry into social enterprise for knowledge construction. The relevant questions include, for example, “What do we newly find about through this inquiry?” and “What is the right limit for sharing in the current context?” or “Why do we see it as appropriate?”

Discussion, by its very nature, can flow easily into reflection. Inquirers look back on the preceding steps and evaluates them from a broader perspective. Inquirers also decide not only whether to close and move to the next stage––such as question 4, “Where Do We Start?”––or to rerun the cycle, but also go into a deeper reflective stage on the nature of the meaning-making process: “What counts as success or as a mistake in this stage?” “How can we learn from others?” “What can we learn from our successes and mistakes?” and “What are the appropriate actions to follow?” would be important reflections for this step.

Table 1  A Small Inquiry Example for #2, How Much Should I Share?

We can ensure that this illustration is only provided as a suggestion. The Action Frame can be incorporated with an inquiry-cycle in a variety of ways. By the very nature of inquiry-based learning, inquirers themselves should map out/determine inquiry roadmaps, coming up with different ideas and questions in accord with their own social contexts.

“Big Inquiry”

Let us take a step back. Now, we can see the big picture of the Action Frame as a large inquiry cycle. Each one of the ten principles does develop its own inquiry cycle, but as shown in Table 2, we take the Action Frame as a whole and break it into one large inquiry cycle. Of course, it is difficult to streamline the complex and cyclical nature of an inquiry cycle with the Action Frame. It was designed as a linear process and is seemingly quite the opposite of an inquiry cycle. But even so, some principles have more prominence than do others involving certain steps in an inquiry cycle. For example, Principle 1, “Why does it matter to me?” appeals more to the ask step than to the others, for it puts forward a fundamental question for the entire inquiry. Roughly, principles 2 through 7 concern the investigate or create elements more closely than do the others, while the rest of the principles, 8 through 9, involve the discuss elements. The last principle, 10, “How can we find allies?” pertains slightly more to the reflect element than to the others. Its core issue involves maintaining active momentum and making it transplantable to other soils. Addressing actions for change that follow is fairly conspicuous; it requires an intense reflection on all of the preceding steps.

These distinctions, of course, can be arbitrary and no clear-cut distinctions exist. Inquirers surely configure different arrangements to varying degrees according to their issues and context. What we want to stress in big inquiry is normative concerns. That is, the big inquiry does not simply involve how-to-dos––technical procedures or methods used for a particular setting, but it brings us to a moral-political question about where we are heading and how we can direct our study towards a desirable and fair direction.

Combined with the big inquiry, civic actors (interchangeably used with inquirers in civic-political participation) continue to repeat the principles, and upon such cyclical efforts they fine-tune the goals, strategies, processes, and questions. Self-criticism, situated-ness, and creativity, among many significant traits, play key roles in advocating for diversity in both content of knowledge and the format in which the knowledge is constructed. Equality in knowledge production remains not only in a pure intellectual realm. It eventually affects us in many of all facets of everyday life, about how we live in, think, perceive the world, communicate with others, and make judgments of right or wrong. What the big inquiry––and inquiry-based learning­­––is undertaking is that extensive and intense. This is why inquiry-based learning is all about democracy in the end.

1. Why does it matter to me?

ASK

investigate

create

discuss

reflect

2. How much should I share?

ask

INVESTIGATE

CREATE

discuss

reflect

3. How do I make it about more than myself?

ask

INVESTIGATE

CREATE

discuss

reflect

4. Where do we start?

ask

INVESTIGATE

CREATE

discuss

reflect

5. How can we make it easy and engaging for others to join in?

ask

INVESTIGATE

CREATE

discuss

reflect

6. How do we get wisdom from crowds?

ask

INVESTIGATE

CREATE

discuss

reflect

7. How do we handle the downside of crowds?

ask

INVESTIGATE

CREATE

discuss

reflect

8. Does raising our voices count as civic and political action?

ask

investigate

create

DISCUSS

reflect

9. How do we get from voice to change?

ask

investigate

create

DISCUSS

reflect

10. How can we find allies? 

ask

investigate

create

discuss

REFLECT

 Table 2 A “Big Inquiry” in the Action Frame

 

*Credit for this post goes to Chip Bruce’s “What is Inquiry-based Learning?”  and “The Inquiry Cycle.”)