At the PBL Summit a few weeks ago, we had two wonderful speakers, Julian Fleron and Phil Hotchkiss from Westfield State University who are founding members of the Discovering the Art of Mathematics Project.  They gave a great key note address on Friday night about Inquiry-Based Learning and motivating students in an IBL classroom.  You can find their talk at our Summit Resources website if you are interested.  I wrote a blogpost a few years ago about my interest in IBL and the commonalities between PBL and IBL and I thought I’d reshare in honor of them.  Enjoy!

A number of years ago, I needed some kind of suport text for a Number Theory tutorial that I was doing with two rather advanced students who had gone through the curriculum at the school where I was teaching.  These two girls were advanced enough that I knew that if I used my notes and problems from my wonderful Number Theory course from college (some many years ago) we would have a great time.  I looked online and found a great book called “Number Theory Through Inquiry” published by the MAA which came with an instructor’s supplement including pedagogical discussion and some solutions.  It sounded so much like what I was doing with my other classes that I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to see what it was like.  So I ordered the book and while I was reading the instructor’s supplement I came across something that I had not heard about before (and now I am so embarrassed to admit this). The authors described what they called the “Modified Moore Method” of instruction or Inquiry-Based Learning and went on to describe what sounded interestingly so much like what I was doing in my classroom.  I had to learn about this Moore Method.

I ended up researching R.L. Moore online and it seems that he was one of the first math teachers – ever – to think about and act on this idea of not teaching mathematics with direct instruction.  He did it all the way back in 1948, but at the college level – and it was radical there!  The idea of Inquiry-Based Learning has expanded from there, but it has really only stayed at the college level in mathematics for a very long time.  There are many initiatives at the college level, including the folks at Westfield State University who are writing a wonderful curriculum project funded by the NSF called Discovering the Art of Mathematics with is a math for liberal arts curriculum at the college level.  I think it could be used at the secondary level as well for an alternative elective in the senior year for those students who still want to take a college-level math course but aren’t ready for or interested in an AP course in Calculus or Stats.  If there are any secondary teachers interested in beta-testing this unique curriculum please contact me and let me know.  I am on the advisory board for this project.

What made me think about the connection between IBL and PBL was this wonderful blogpost I just read by Dana Ernst, of Northern Arizona University in which he describes, in such wonderful ways, the pedagogy and nature of IBL.  The similarities between the definition of IBL he cites (by E. Lee May) and my definition of PBL are eerie – and it is one of the only ones that I’ve seen that stresses a reference to teacher authority being diminished.  Many wonderful resources are given by Ernst at the end of his post as well.

I do remember back in 2003, when I published my first article on my experiences at Emma Willard, after I left Exeter (where they called in Harkness teaching because of the table), in attempting to teach the way I wished to.  I had no idea what to call what I was doing.  I believe in my first article I called it teaching with a Problem-Solving Curriculum (PSC).  After I started my doctoral work, I found PBL and I realized that’s what it was.  Then I read more and more and realized that others thought PBL was project-based learning and called what I did discovery learning.  After reading about R.L. Moore, it sounds like he was doing it all along since 1948 and called it IBL.  In whatever branch of the pedagogical family tree you find yourself, if you are asking students to look at mathematics with wonder and question what they know – you should know that you are supported, know that you are doing good work and know that there is someone out there who has done it before and wants to discuss it with you.

PS – I’m hoping to attend the Legacy of R.L. Moore Conference next year in Austin, if anyone is interested!