ABSTRACT
Well-implemented, inquiry-based learning is applicable to a broad range of students, but the expectations for talented students' accomplishments can be suitably differentiated. The skills involved may best be directly taught and practiced. The gifted education literature has begun to pose similar questions. Trained teachers created more opportunities for gifted children to determine their learning activities and to exercise self-direction. A key unanswered question remains whether or not inquiry-based learning is in any way uniquely appropriate to high-ability students. Research on inquiry-based learning so far points to its being effective in classrooms across ability levels to varying degrees, and that it can be taught by teachers experienced in teaching students to ask inquiry-related questions and facilitating their small group interaction. Schoolwide decisions can clearly affect the opportunity for inquiry-based learning in the classroom, but this too is more an issue of educated guessing than the outcome of specific study.
