Let's help young people develop a passion for questioning, investigating, and learning across the curriculum.

Inquiry is standards-based, real-world, problem-solving and information searching that carries on into adult, lifelong literacy necessary for a democratic society. Today's students need 21st century skills to access, use, and share information our technology-enhanced world.

As teachers, we can build fluid environments for learning where students experience and convey complex, interactive messages through multiple channels of communication (i.e., text, visual, audio, motion). During guided inquiry, questions and information flow smoothly from one media to the next. The strengths of each media create synergy and more depth of understanding. The result is something more rich and dynamic than could be done using a single resource or approach.

Let's explore each of the following six topics related to building these types of fluid environments for learning.

• Topic 1: Inquiry
• Topic 2: Questioning
• Topic 3: Exploring
• Topic 4: Assimilating
• Topic 5: Inferring
• Topic 6: Reflecting