The Pizza Inquiry Project

Maybe our students could build their own questions.

Questions unite, answers divide. – Elie Wiesel

The background story…

(Skip this story and scroll to the bottom of this page to find the examples)

So Marcus Blair (@MrBlairsClass) and I were chatting a while back – and to be clear, we chat quite often. Assessment is the most common topic.

He has been exploring the use of inquiry questions. Hard to ‘Google’, more sophisiticated and dripping with student agency…these questions fit well with British Columbia’s New Reporting Order.

As it turns out, inquiry questions fit well with learning in more places than just BC.

Marcus shared an idea he was pursuing – ‘Could my students come up with their own questions?’ We talked about the challenges surrounding students coming up with their own questions, and the fact that they just didn’t have experience in doing so. That’s a nice way of saying that we have deprogrammed exploration out of much of our curriculum. Marcus had started down the road of building word banks that students might select from to construct a question…genius.

That night I was ordering a pizza, and the next step came to me – the Pizza Inquiry. Similar to a pizza order – crust, sauce, toppings…maybe students could select from a series of menus to build a question.

Have a look at the following concepts and let’s let this idea fly! Email me other examples (myrondueck@gmail.com) and I will cite, share and post.

Parm anyone?

The Original Social Studies Inquiry Model…well, version 2 thanks to Josh Hames (@Mr_Hames) who suggested we add blanks that students could fill in, is found below. The Math example was in-part designed with staff at Glenbard HS. More to come…

Here’s the latest: A Social Justice Literature Book Study courtesy of Allison Balabuch – teacher and PhD student. PDF version found here.

Social Studies, Psychology and Math Inquiry Pizza concept – PDF Versions

Social Studies Inquiry – Word Version (you can edit!)

Math Pizza Inquiry Menu – Word version

Here’s an elementary Pizza Inquiry I co-designed with Ashley Aoki. After her students read a novel in their lit circles, they used the menu to design a question that was their own! Click below to check it out!