Making Inquiry Learning Our Top Priority: Why We Must and How We Can

Abstract

The liberal arts of evidence-based inquiry are necessities for knowledgeable participation in a self-governing democracy and equally important in an innovation-dependent economy. Higher education's role in fostering these capacities has always been one of its most important contributions to the greater good. The current political environment calls for a new sense of urgency about preparing graduates to apply evidence-based reasoning to complex questions and competing claims. Yet a new study of students' course-based assignments suggests that large numbers of college seniors are leaving college with a very weak grasp of how to use evidence or build a well-supported argument. Calling on educators to make the shift from "my course" to new intentionality about "our curriculum," the author provides practical suggestions for fostering the skills foundational to inquiry learning from first to final year.