IDM: Supporting Questions (SQ)

 4th Grade Social Studies Lesson

        The IDM framework begins with a compelling question that outlines an inquiry, and the supporting 

questions support and sustain it (Swan, Lee, & Grant, 1970). With a vertical alignment, supporting 

questions assist students in organizing the main ideas of the compelling question, and the SQ's will 

progress logically in content and become more complex as the inquiry develops (Swan, Lee, & Grant,

1970). In reflecting upon my own 4th grade lesson plan, it took more of a horizontal trajectory. In the 

"procedures" section of the instructional sequence, the three questions provided that the students have to 

answer based on the PBS video they observe do not require the students to enter into inquiry. Rather,

these questions demand a correct answer. Furthermore, the questions do not provide a logical progression

in content nor do they become more complex or sophisticated. Instead, in that horizontal trajectory, the 

questions lead the students to a very shallow understanding of Native American dance and culture. This 

points to how powerful and important a strong compelling question and well-developed supporting 

questions are to the vertical alignment of the IDM.  Since compelling questions outline the inquiry, an 

inadequate compelling question can derail the supporting questions and undermine the inquiry (Journell, 

Friedman, Thacker, & Fitchett, 2018).  It is very evident in my 4th grade lesson plan that both the essential

question and the procedural questions were inadequate in providing a framework for inquiry, and affording

the students the benefit of gaining deep knowledge from a vertically aligned lesson.

        The creators of the C3 framework suggest that students should have a role in designing the questions

that will guide their inquiry (Grant, Lee, & Swan, 2015). Crafting questions is a very intellectually 

sophisticated process and students in the elementary grades will need their teachers assistance to do so

(Grant, Lee, & Swan, 2015). Not only can students craft compelling and supporting questions, they can 

offer alternative ideas or slight changes to their instructors compelling and/or supporting questions, or 

they may spark some new compelling questions for future Inquiries (Grant, Lee, & Swan, 2015). The 

attached 4th grade social studies lesson on Native Americans did not offer the students any opportunities

to be the creators or designers of their lesson in any way, shape, or form. Students in Teri Crowe's class

were passive learners who were told what they were going to learn. They were not asked to create

questions that they may have about Native Americans. Contrary to the student-centered model of IDM,

the attached 4th grade lesson above is really a teacher-centered and teacher-directed lesson plan. On the 

surface, although it seemed very beneficial that the students would be able to view video and answer 

questions, and ultimately get up and move through the dance activity, this lesson plan places the teacher in 

the drivers seat and has the student in a passive role.  The children are forced to learn and remember a 

bunch of facts or information that not only has no personal interest for them, it also has no current 

relevance to the world around them. Most importantly, it leaves them out of their own learning process.