Learning that Matters: Engaging Students Through Inquiry

Picture a kindergarten classroom at 10:30 on a typical weekday morning. It’s a lively atmosphere filled with the buzz of children laughing and playing. At the block station, some young engineers collaborate to build a free-standing tower. Another group sits in a cozy nook with their teacher, joyfully practicing Hebrew letters and mastering the tricky ayin (ע) sound. Across the room, a bustling pretend bakery is in full swing as students roll imaginary dough and customers order challah for Shabbat.

Now, imagine what many might consider a stereotypical middle-school classroom at 10:30 on a weekday morning. The mood is calm, if a bit subdued. Scritching pencils can be heard as students copy down notes. Some look up attentively at the teacher, who continues writing on the board, while others shift in their seats or glance at the clock. As class winds down, the teacher hands back graded unit tests from two weeks earlier. A few students smile quietly at their marks, while others stare blankly at their papers, clearly disheartened. The teacher assigns homework, the bell rings, and the kids shuffle out of the room to their next class.

These scenarios, though overly generalized, reflect a broader truth in K-12 education: engagement declines as students progress through school. Studies show students become less likely to report school as enjoyable, interesting or relevant as they age. For Jewish day schools, this poses a particularly consequential challenge: The disengagement of students risks undermining the broader goals of strengthening Jewish identities, particularly when families make significant financial and emotional investments in this education. It is not unreasonable to assume that disengaged graduates may be less inclined to send their own children to Jewish day schools in the future.

To be clear, this is not an indictment of educators or an assertion that students don’t want to learn. The teachers I know are tirelessly committed to their students’ success, and children of all ages are naturally curious and want to explore the world around them. The issue is that, as students grow older, the nature of school-based learning often diverges from meaningful or authentic learning. Perceived curricular demands and an emphasis on assessments leave little room for experiential, student-centered learning opportunities. What if inquiry-based learning was more commonplace across all grades?

The Projects

At Netivot HaTorah Day School in Toronto, a seventh-grade inquiry course launched in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic provides a compelling example of how such an approach can transform middle-school education. In this half-year course, students collaborate to develop a comprehensive proposal for a new urban center in Israel. Students are introduced to foundational topics in urban planning such as housing, roads and transit systems, utilities and urban farming. While developing their problem-solving and technical skills, they also learn about important Jewish perspectives and Israeli connections to these topics. Grounded in the principles of inquiry-based education, the course focuses on real-world connections, hands-on experiential learning and an iterative, problem-solving approach to student work.

In one highlight, students program robots to simulate autonomous buses navigating city streets. This activity provides students with significant control over the design of their chosen bus routes and the code required to navigate traffic successfully. “I liked that I could control everything about the activity,” said one student. “I decided the bus route and what code to use so I could make it as hard as I wanted. I made it challenging but not too tricky that I didn’t want to do it anymore.”

Students appreciate the responsibility of calibrating the difficulty of tasks to match their comfort levels. In fact, with simpler routes mastered, groups regularly add obstacles and additional turns to increase the difficulty as they become more confident in their abilities.

Students also find it interesting to discuss halakhic implications of emerging technologies. For example, students debate passionately about whether future autonomous transit systems could be used on Jewish holidays and Shabbat. Many students draw on their own personal experiences to engage with these topics.

Adam: I think it’s just like Shabbat elevators, where you’re not pushing any buttons or doing anything to control it. You just walk on and walk off when it’s your floor.

Josh: Yeah, but buses are more complicated because you have to tell the bus when to stop.

Adam: What if it just stopped at every stop automatically? Like an elevator that stops on every floor.

Josh: I guess…maybe…but it’s still marit ayin (מראית עין). It doesn’t seem right to travel places like that on Shabbat.

Jewish perspectives are also brought to bear on ethical questions about self-driving technology. Should autonomous vehicles prioritize the lives of its passengers over others? These thought-provoking conversations engage students so deeply that some choose to bring the issue to their parents and rabbis for further insight.

Sustainability is another central theme, with students gathering information about urban farming methods, such as rooftop gardens and greenhouses, to promote self-reliance in large cities. Students engage in related hands-on experiences like cultivating vegetables in the school’s outdoor greenhouse and indoor hydroponic systems, demonstrating the feasibility of year-round food production—even in colder climates like Canada.

Students respond positively to these activities and think meaningfully about their implications. As one student reflected, “We actually got to decide what to grow, and then we had to figure out how to keep it alive. It wasn’t just a project. We had to make it work!” Another came to the realization that “if a city could make a massive hydroponic system the size of a warehouse, we could make food like us [in class] but at a larger amount, right? Why don’t cities do that?” These reflections highlight how students naturally extend their thinking beyond a school project, critically examining real-world problems and developing potential solutions.

These activities also integrate halakhic principles, real modern farming practices and innovative Israeli technology. Discussions extend to related topics in the Torah, including shmittah—the sabbatical year when agricultural land lies fallow, emphasizing rest for the earth and sustainable farming practices. “It’s kind of cool that the Torah was talking about the environment way before anyone knew about climate change,” noted one student. Students also examine Israel’s agricultural innovations, including drip irrigation and water desalination, and discuss laws of kashrut related to hydroponic farming. One student wondered, “if there’s no soil [in hydroponic systems] and we’re inside, does that mean no bugs to check for? Or do we still have to check?”

Student Reflection

As the project wraps up, students are given the opportunity to reflect openly on their experiences. Observations typically include how profoundly hands-on tasks, real-world examples, and genuine choice boost their engagement. In addition, the opportunity to connect their learning to their own lives and the world around them motivates students to put more effort into their work and genuinely enjoy the learning process. One student summarized, “In this class, it never really felt like a class even though I knew it was… I was just focusing on building the city and working with my friends on projects because it actually mattered to me.”

This anecdotal evidence from Netivot aligns with broader research on student engagement. Enhanced engagement doesn’t just make learning more enjoyable for students, it improves educational outcomes such as fostering better in-class behavior, deeper understanding and higher achievement. In Jewish day schools, inquiry-based learning has significant added potential. It can cultivate stronger connections to Judaism and nurture students' Jewish identities by emphasizing the relevance of their learning to everyday life.

Implementation

If we believe that inquiry-based learning should have a more prominent role in Jewish day schools (particularly in the middle- and high-school environments), what steps should schools take? It is not easy to do. Adopting this type of learning requires significant buy-in from teachers, administrators and students. Teachers must embrace less predictability in the classroom and relinquish airtight control over the progression of learning to grant students the power to follow their own lines of inquiry. This often means developing last-minute lessons or gathering resources to answer pressing student questions.

The flexibility required on the part of teachers to make this model work, therefore, requires significant support from administrators and school leaders. Administrators need to invest in necessary materials and resources, and build ample time into teachers’ schedules to collaborate and plan rich learning opportunities.

Students also need to play an active role if this pedagogy is to be successful. Adapting to this style of learning, which differs from the more traditionally-structured, teacher-directed methods they may be accustomed to, requires flexibility and open-mindedness. Most importantly, it calls for students to take agency over their learning, advocate for their needs, and actively contribute to building knowledge. While this shift may be challenging at first, we must not underestimate our students’ capacity to thrive in this environment with proper support.

Time, money and ingrained habits are often the biggest obstacles to making meaningful changes in educational practice, and this issue is no exception. However, committing to inquiry-based learning is worth the effort because it has the potential to reinvigorate classrooms and make learning more engaging, meaningful and rewarding in the long term. For Jewish day schools, this also means fostering critical thinking and active engagement with the world through a Jewish lens. Schools can reverse the trend of declining student engagement and create environments where students look forward to learning and actively shape their own budding Jewish identities.

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Student Spotlight

Spring 2025