Hi Ruth,
I’m with you both here – let’s get FOSIL in there and THEN get them to reverse the order. Just think if over time you could persuade them to call this skillset “Inquiry Skills” and give FOSIL as an example of “An organised process for conducting an inquiry”… While they are using fuzzy language here, we are all on a journey and have to start where we find ourselves. After all, the first iteration of FOSIL (many years ago) was “Framework for Oakham School Information Literacy“. We have come a very long way in our understanding of inquiry since then, arriving at the Framework Of Skills for Inquiry Learning, but if Darryl hadn’t started out looking for an information literacy model we would never have arrived at an inquiry model. The IB are interested in the research process, so work with them to show them that inquiry gives them the model they need and so much more besides.
On a separate note, I’ve been thinking since last week about your excellent Sixth Form inquiry focussing on Investigate that tried to slow them down and stop them jumping to conclusions. You said that they struggled with the idea of no concrete Express phase and I wondered if you could give them an Express that didn’t focus on conclusions. How about imagining they are a reference librarian or perhaps a parliamentary researcher, and their job isn’t to find an answer to the question (or even necessarily to find the question) but to collect a balanced set of reputable resources that address their topic from a range of angles to allow the client to draw their own conclusions? This way they have a concrete product that explicitly precludes drawing conclusions. They could produce a briefing paper/leaflet/poster for their client that summarises the main areas of argument and gives resources for further study for each. (Briefing paper might be the wrong phrase here as those usually propose solutions I think, and we don’t want them to do that. I’m not sure what the correct phrase would be).
What you are doing sounds like such an excellent idea, I think you were saying that it just needs some focus for the students so they know what they are aiming for at the end.
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