What is Inquiry Buddies?

Inquiry Buddies is the grouping of multi-aged students around a year-long learning project.  It is designed as an opportunity for student to pursue their curiosities with other students who share the same passions.  In addition, it is an ideal opportunity for students to  learn and practice essential 21st Century skills, such as collaboration, creativity, communication, leadership, and problem solving.
"Your journey never ends. Life has a way of changing things in incredible ways." 

~ Alexander Volkov

"Wisdom begins with Wonder"  ~ Socrates

How Inquiry Buddies Began . . . 

Buddies had always been an activity that Nadine saw value in, but she was frustrated by the fact that the bigger buddy was often an assistant.  Often, many of her Grade 7's were not eager to meet with their buddy.   When paired up randomly, several buddies were mismatched and not all relationships were productive and / or strong. In 2009-2010, Bonny began implementing inquiry learning into her classroom. Encouraging her students to be curious, think, and investigate their interests and passions has been deeply rewarding and exciting. Bonny saw the value in this type of learning, but she thought there must be a better way.  Bonny wondered if big buddies could act as mentors and help her scaffold her grade 2/3's.  One day, Bonny and Nadine had a conversation in the staffroom and our buddy inquiry project was born! 

Bonny had just been accepted for her Masters at SFU, so this project became her research focus.  She wanted to know how the introduction of multi-aged groupings during student led inquiry would impact its effectiveness and her teaching practice. 

Together with Barry, the three began a year long journey that had both its ups and downs.  Read our year one reflections here!  This website is the product of our first year of learning and is now an evolving document. 

In the 2013/2014 school year,  Barry moved onto a new school.  We adopted a new partner in our Inquiry Journey, Brian Milner.  With the addition of Brian, we also added a new twist -  using only grade 5, 6's and 7's and allowing same grade groups to work together!  This presented some similar and new challenges, but once again proved the value of having students work together on year-long passion based projects.  Read our year 2 reflections here!

In the 2014/2015 school year, Nadine will be heading off to teach Grade 8 at middle school, with the intention to find ways to have Inquiry Buddies work at the middle school level.  At Willoughby, Bonny and Brian will continue to build Inquiry Buddies!
We are all teachers for School District #35.  This website contains may external links. 
School District #35 and the three of us, Bonny, Barry and Nadine, are not responsible for any outside content.