Trainer: Darryl Toerien
Originator of FOSIL and the FOSIL Group | Head of Inquiry-Based Learning at Blanchelande College
Contact: LinkedIN
InveSTEAM
Pic number: 890934137
OID: E10278466
Explore the FOSIL Inquiry Cycle by clicking on
Connect | Wonder | Investigate | Construct | Express | Reflect
Download a simplified version of the FOSIL Inquiry Cycle for use with younger students (PDF or PNG).
Inquiry-Based Learning
A structured course for teachers and librarians will be published at the ESEP and can be co-funded by Erasmus program.
Next Session: June 29th – July 3rd, 2026 in Istanbul
Certificate and Europass Mobility Document
On 29 February 2024, Barbara Stripling, Jenny Toerien and Darryl Toerien presented Engaging and Empowering Learners for Life through Inquiry / Developing Inquiry-Based Schools & School Libraries (PPT download) at the San Jose State University School of Information Leap into the Future of School Libraries Conference (free eBook of video presentations).
Program Description
When learners develop an inquiry stance, they learn to follow their own sense of wonder into new discoveries and insights about themselves, others, and the way the world works. Through inquiry, learners develop the skills and attitudes of independent learning, a strong self-identity, cultural responsiveness, social and emotional health, voice and agency, and a growth mindset. In this session, we will explore teaching these whole-child skills and attitudes to learners throughout their years of schooling through collaboratively planned, inquiry-based curricular units and direct instruction. By teaching these life skills, school librarians can empower all students to flourish both in school and beyond.
“Upon this first, and in one sense sole, rule of reason – in order to learn you must desire to learn, and in so desiring not be satisfied with what you already incline to think – there follows one corollary which itself deserves to be inscribed upon every wall of the city of philosophy: Do not block the way of inquiry.” (C.S. Peirce)
I am the originator of FOSIL (2011) – the Framework Of Skills for Inquiry Learning – and the FOSIL Group (2019) – an international community of educators committed to building an enabling inquiry environment in PK-12 schools. FOSIL is based on the work of Barbara Stripling as reflected in the Empire State Information Fluency Continuum (ESIFC), and since 2020 I have been developing FOSIL with Barbara alongside the ESIFC. FOSIL and the ESIFC are two of the five models included in the IFLA / De Gruyter publication Global Action for School Libraries: Models of Inquiry (2022).
I am a member of the UK School Library Association (SLA), the International Association of School Librarianship (IASL), and the School Libraries Section (SLS) of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). I served a term on the Board of the SLA, two extended terms on the National Committee of the School Libraries Group (SLG) of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), and a term on the Standing Committee of IFLAS’s SLS. I taught Theology and Philosophy before becoming a professionally qualified librarian in 2003.
InveSTEAM 