Inquiry Design Model Lessons

When we launched the Civics of Technology site we posted the Inquiry Design Model (IDM) lessons that you can find below. For those unfamiliar, the IDM emerged as an attempt to create a planning blueprint for the inquiry approach advocated by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) in their 2013 College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework. While states still have control over social studies curriculum, around 40 states have adopted this inquiry approach to varying degrees. Teachers can download a template for focused IDMs (1 day) or IDM mini-units (usually 3-5 days), and find a number of IDM examples on the C3Teachers site (https://c3teachers.org). We like IDMs because they require students to do the intellectual work of analyzing sources, making informed arguments, and participating in debates that respond to the compelling question. Of course, IDMs are not without critique as questions can be authored to debate false equivalencies or even put minoritized students’ humanity on debate (for more on critiques see Gibson, 2020; Hlavacik & Krutka, 2021). When done well, we hope IDMs can engage students in debates about the role of technology in society that are too often ignored as technology companies forge ahead with recreating our future in their image. We hope K-12, teacher, and higher educators find these IDMs useful and we welcome feedback or critique. We plan to author more technology education IDMs and welcome submissions.