The Inquiry Exchange

We make instructional decisions based on what we believe our students need. But what happens when those decisions don't produce the results we expected?

And when students succeed, does that automatically mean we made the right decisions?

In Episode 10 of The Inquiry Exchange, I'm exploring the relationship between student outcomes, professional judgment, and teacher accountability.

How do we evaluate good teaching when the results don't tell the whole story?

I'd love to hear how other educators approach this question.

Let's change classrooms, one inquiry at a time.

#TheInquiryExchange #TeachingAndLearning #TeacherReflection #Education

How Do We Teach for Depth When There's So Much to Cover?

Every teacher knows the pressure to cover the curriculum. We have standards to meet, pacing guides to follow, and deadlines that aren't going anywhere.

But here's a question I've been asking myself after 33 years in the classroom: Does covering the material necessarily mean students understand it?

In this episode of The Inquiry Exchange, I explore one of teaching's most persistent challenges: balancing the amount of content we're expected to teach with the time students need to develop meaningful understanding.

We'll talk about deciding what deserves a deeper investigation, when direct instruction makes more sense, why background knowledge matters, and why sometimes we need to reconsider even our favorite lessons.

Because the goal isn't necessarily to cover less. It's to make more of what we cover matter.

I'd love to hear your thoughts: How do you decide what deserves more time in your classroom?

Let's change classrooms, one inquiry at a time.

00:00 The Pressure to Cover the Curriculum03:22 The Reality of Curriculum and Time Constraints06:21 Depth vs. Breadth: Why Students Need Both08:44 What Deserves to Be Told or Investigated?11:51 When Pacing and Priorities Collide15:09 Rethinking How We Plan Lessons18:11 Questioning Our Favorite Lessons19:07 Measuring Progress Through Understanding21:17 Making More of What We Cover Matter22:29 Where the Inquiry Exchange Goes Next

Teachers are really good at helping. We clarify, redirect, give hints, and point students toward the next step.

But during inquiry, can helping too quickly sometimes take the thinking away from the student?

In Episode 8 of The Inquiry Exchange, I explore the tension between stepping in and stepping back. This isn't about leaving students to struggle or telling them to “figure it out.” It's about recognizing what kind of help a student actually needs.

Do they need information? Clarification? Or simply an opportunity to think a little longer?

Sometimes the goal isn't to remove uncertainty. It's to help students learn what to do next when they aren't sure.

Keep the thinking with the student.

When do you step in, and when do you give students more room to think?

Let's change classrooms, one inquiry at a time.

We want students to ask questions, work with evidence, challenge ideas, and eventually take ownership of their own learning. But how do they learn to do that?

In this episode of The Inquiry Exchange, I explore the connection between student discourse and inquiry, and why putting students into groups isn't enough to create meaningful conversation or deeper thinking.

The same may be true of inquiry itself. Before students can own the process, they have to learn the moves.

One progression I'm seeing in my own classroom:

Teacher creates the pathway → Students recognize the pathway → Students create the pathway.

The goal isn't to scaffold inquiry forever. It's to help students reach the point where they no longer need the scaffold.

What is one part of inquiry your students still need you to do for them, and what would it take to teach them to do it themselves?

Let’s change classrooms, one inquiry at a time.

Episode 6: Inquiry Should Be a Habit, Not a Lesson

We ask students to question, investigate, connect ideas, challenge assumptions, and revise their thinking. But what if those behaviors don't come naturally simply because we ask students to do them?

In this episode of The Inquiry Exchange, I explore something I'm seeing in my own classrooms:

Inquiry may have to be practiced before it can become natural.

What happens when students don't know the answer? What happens when some students enter an inquiry with plenty of background knowledge while others are starting almost from scratch? And what happens when we, as teachers, step in too quickly to rescue them?

I also look at how strategies like QFT, Think → Write → Pair → Share, CER, and InquiryQuest can give students repeated opportunities to question, investigate, connect, challenge, and revise their thinking.

The goal isn't for students to get good at an inquiry activity.

The goal is for inquiry to become a habit.

What has inquiry looked like in your classroom? What have your students had to learn about inquiry, and what have you had to learn while teaching it?

Join the conversation and share your experience with The Inquiry Exchange.

Let’s change classrooms, one inquiry at a time.

I prefer that to copying the YouTube description verbatim. YouTube gets the searchable/discovery version; Spotify gets the slightly more conversational episode-notes version.

Episode 5: How Do You Know Your Students Are Actually Thinking?

A quiet classroom doesn't necessarily mean students aren't thinking. And a classroom full of discussion doesn't necessarily mean they are.

In this episode of The Inquiry Exchange, I look at what evidence of student thinking can actually look like, drawing from what I'm seeing in three very different classrooms: AP Government, AP U.S. History, and Sociology.

I'm becoming less interested in whether students are talking and more interested in whether they're doing something with an idea.

Are they questioning? Making connections? Using evidence? Challenging an idea? Revising their thinking?

I also share how I'm using InquiryQuest and other inquiry strategies to create more opportunities for students to make their thinking visible.

And the episode leaves us with another question:

What if inquiry itself has to be learned?

That's where we're headed next on The Inquiry Exchange.

I'd also love to hear what's happening in your classroom. Share an inquiry experience, whether it worked beautifully, completely fell apart, or surprised you somewhere along the way. I want The Inquiry Exchange to become a place where we learn from each other's classrooms.

Let’s change classrooms, one inquiry at a time.

How do you know when your students are actually learning?

A quiet classroom. Students on task. Assignments getting completed. From the outside, everything can look like learning. But are students actually thinking, or are they simply doing what school has trained them to do?

In this episode of The Inquiry Exchange, I explore the difference between student engagement, compliance, and genuine learning. We’ll look at why completing the work isn’t always evidence of understanding, why active learning doesn’t necessarily mean students are talking, and why real thinking can sometimes look a little messy.

I also wrestle with a question I’ve been encountering in my own classroom: What happens when students actually prefer the worksheet?

This week’s inquiry: What evidence do you have that your students are actually thinking?

Let’s change classrooms, one inquiry at a time.

What happens when you ask a question, give students time to think...and nobody answers?

In Episode 3 of The Inquiry Exchange, Dr. David Brothman takes on one of the most familiar classroom challenges: student silence.

Maybe the problem isn't simply that students won't participate. Maybe we haven't given them a way into the thinking.

This episode explores Think → Write → Talk → Share, a simple strategy that gives students time to process, develop confidence, and enter the conversation before they're asked to respond publicly.

Because engagement isn't something we can simply demand from students. It's something we have to design for.

This week's Inquiry Challenge: Don't just wait. Build an on-ramp. Try the strategy with one question and ask yourself: Who got into the conversation who normally wouldn't have?

Let's change classrooms one question at a time. Keep inquiring.

Episode 2 — Who’s Doing the Thinking?

Who’s doing the thinking in your classroom? The teacher or the students?

As teachers, we know our content. We know where we want the lesson to go. But sometimes that expertise creates an unexpected trap: we step in too quickly and do the intellectual work our students could be doing themselves.

In this episode of The Inquiry Exchange, I explore what happens when we resist the urge to provide the answer and instead give students more opportunities to question, struggle, think, and discover.

And I leave you with one simple Inquiry Challenge you can try in your classroom tomorrow:

Don’t rescue them, once.

Wait a little longer. Ask another question. Give your students the opportunity to do the thinking you were about to do for them.

Then, at the end of class, ask yourself:

Who did most of the thinking today?

If this conversation makes you think of another educator, share the episode with them and continue the exchange.

Let’s change classrooms—one question at a time.

What happens when you realize you're becoming the very teacher you never wanted to be?

In the first episode of The Inquiry Exchange, Dr. David Brothman shares the experiences that shaped his approach to teaching—from being a student who never learned best by simply listening, to unexpected conversations on Capitol Hill and with Governor Mario Cuomo, to the moment during student teaching when everything began to change.

This isn't a conversation about eliminating lectures. It's about something much bigger: creating classrooms where students question, investigate, debate, struggle, discover—and ultimately do the thinking.

Along the way, David shares why those experiences eventually led him to write Escape the Lecture Trap and why The Inquiry Exchange is the next chapter of that journey.

One story. One idea. One question at a time.

Continue the conversation at The Inquiry Exchange: https://brothmaninquiry.wixsite.com/brothman-inquiry-con