Inductive teaching, also known as inquiry or discovery teaching, centers around the idea that knowledge is dependent on an individual’s experience and interaction with the material.  The instructor provides examples from which students are encouraged to seek patterns and applications, explore and extend the material, and make connections, thus inductively learning the concept that these examples indicate. This is opposite of deductive teaching, in which the concept is defined by the teacher, and the class is then exposed to examples on this previously learned concept.

Structuring your class such that it requires students to inductively process the course material is outlined in the Teaching for Understanding framework (Wiske, 1998). In this framework of guided inquiry, the role of the teacher is to direct students’ attention and analysis through focused and often ongoing assignments. These assignments should attempt to increase the “uncoverage” of a subject, which requires that students receive “lessons that enable them to experience directly the inquiries, arguments, applications, and points of view underneath the facts and opinions they learn if they are to understand them.  Students have to do the subject, not just learn its results” (Wiggins & McTighe, 1998).  This manner of teaching is beneficial for all instructors whose course goals include the sentence, “I want my students to be able to think like a ________ (scientist, mathematician, writer, etc.).”  In this way, Wiske recommends shaping the assignments such that they increase in complexity across the semester, as well as move from group projects to more independent learning tasks.  Learning thus occurs through observation and guided performances, and assessment of students’ increasingly honed inductive reasoning skills occurs through on-going assignments. However, a “culminating performance” is often used at the end a course or unit, which requires independent application of inductive thinking, synthesis, and a demonstration of understanding that extends beyond the learning which was attained from group work.
             

Resources:
Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J.  (1998).  Understanding by Design.  Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.
Wiske, M.S., Ed.  (1998).  Teaching for Understanding: Linking Research with Practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.