What are we seeing?
Experience · For whom · Current pattern
Tools and Activities
Resource Hub · Retreat II · 20–25 minutes
Inquiry Frame
Carry one advancing inquiry from the Inquiry Bank into a focused question the team can learn with.
Working aim: clear enough to investigate, open enough to revise.
Entries stay in the Brief working canvas when you change views. Use short, labeled notes or a partner to capture ideas. Print before leaving; reloading clears entries.
Complete meeting sequence
Brief working canvas
Inquiry Frame
Purpose: Carry an advancing inquiry into an evidence-grounded, bounded frame and provisional design questions.
Use this when: Interpretation and narrowing have identified an inquiry worth taking forward.
Start with: One Inquiry Bank candidate, its disposition and rationale, source evidence, and an inquiry team.
Time: 25–30 minutes for one prepared frame; the steps allocate 30 including confirming the disposition and drafting three HMW options. Allow more time when new evidence changes the candidate. These are planning estimates; allow additional processing and participation time.
Participation: Think individually before discussion. Use bullets, a labeled diagram, or spoken ideas captured and checked by a partner. You may pass and return. Keep the required information and reasoning visible in your chosen format.
1. Confirm the inquiry’s disposition
4 minutesCheck evidence, student-experience significance, genuine learning need, cross-role value, and workable scope. Ask which perspective is unheard and what dissent or new evidence changes the first-pass status.
Keep the labels shown so related answers remain distinguishable. An explicit unknown is useful.
Include: Candidate / previous status · Five criteria / evidence / open concern · Unheard perspective / dissent · Advance / Combine / Pause / Route elsewhere — rationale
2. Locate people and pattern
5 minutesName the student experience or moment, who may experience it differently, and a concise provisional pattern.
Keep the labels shown so related answers remain distinguishable. An explicit unknown is useful.
Include: Experience / moment / setting · For whom / meaningful variation · We currently think that
3. Ground and complicate
7 minutesSeparate current evidence from what it suggests. Use more than one source when possible. Preserve a contradiction, negative case, difference, or competing explanation.
Keep the labels shown so related answers remain distinguishable. An explicit unknown is useful.
Include: Source / direct evidence / boundary · What it suggests — interpretation · Emerging / moderate / strong convergence — why · Contradiction / negative case / variation / alternative · Missing evidence
4. Bound the learning need
5 minutesWrite the consequential uncertainty as a question; state inside scope and connected issues outside scope for now. Check what the team can investigate within its time and agency.
Keep the labels shown so related answers remain distinguishable. An explicit unknown is useful.
Include: We still need to understand · Included people / process / setting / timeframe · Outside for now / connected issues · Team agency / partner or authority needed
5. Check readiness and bridge to HMW
9 minutesConfirm experience, people and differences, evidence, complication, uncertainty, and workable scope. Refine open elements. Complete “We want to improve or better support… for… because our evidence suggests…” Then draft three HMW options that keep several responses possible.
Keep the labels shown so related answers remain distinguishable. An explicit unknown is useful.
Include: Readiness checks / unresolved elements · Improve or support / for / because evidence suggests · HMW A · HMW B · HMW C · Question or evidence to investigate / owner / review
Done when
The disposition is justified, the frame distinguishes pattern and sources from interpretation, preserves complication and uncertainty, bounds scope, and carries a readiness check plus three provisional HMW options.
One next move
Compare and refine the provisional questions using the Focusing Statement and HMW Reframer.
This retains the locally developed Inquiry Frame’s Bank-to-framing handoff, readiness criteria, and provisional HMW bridge. The brief is a Collaboratory presentation adaptation of this tool; its established sources and local contributions remain attributed in Optional support. CAST UDL Guidelines 3.0 informs the navigation and participation supports.
Complete instructions and working materials
Full guide
Inquiry Frame
Work through the visible activity below. Use the Brief working canvas tab to enter or revisit your notes.
Plan the chosen activity, preparation, fieldwork, and review separately. The brief gives revised meeting estimates; allow more time to complete the full working materials or resolve missing evidence and commitments.
Before you frame
Confirm one Inquiry Bank candidate.
Apply the decision criteria to the first-pass status. Record a focused adjustment if new evidence or dissent changes it.
Ask together
“Does the first-pass disposition still fit when we apply the criteria?”
Before assigning a status: “Is there a perspective we have not heard?” Frame an Advance inquiry now. For Combine, integrate the areas first. Keep Pause and Route Elsewhere documented in the Inquiry Bank.
The short path
Frame the inquiry in four moves.
Write brief, provisional answers. Keep evidence, uncertainty, and differences in student experience visible.
- 01Locate
Which student moment or process are we examining, and whose experience may differ?
- 02Ground
What pattern do we currently see, and what evidence supports it?
- 03Complicate
What contradicts it, varies across students, or has another explanation?
- 04Bound
What do we most need to learn, and what is inside this inquiry for now?
Leave with: one bounded inquiry, the evidence behind it, and the uncertainty to investigate. The next activity turns it into several provisional How Might We questions.
Facilitator guidance and the full sequence
Purpose
Give the team enough clarity to build a strong HMW.
This lean frame carries an advancing inquiry from interpretation into design-question development. It keeps the experience, people, evidence, complication, uncertainty, and scope visible in one place.
The frame is provisional. New student accounts, process knowledge, data, or contradictory cases can change it.
Three-part logic
Move from what the team sees to what it can take forward.
The bands make the reasoning trail visible and keep the HMW grounded in evidence and uncertainty.
What supports or complicates it?
Evidence · Complication · Uncertainty
What are we taking forward?
Boundaries · Readiness · HMW bridge
20–25-minute sequence
Build a concise frame together.
Invite a brief silent draft before discussion. Preserve differences that could change the inquiry.
5 minutes
Locate
Name the experience or moment and the students or contexts whose pathways may differ.
7 minutes
Ground
State the current pattern and connect it to Retreat I, student listening, process knowledge, or other evidence.
5 minutes
Complicate
Preserve a contradiction, negative case, variation, or plausible alternative explanation.
4 minutes
Bound
Name the key uncertainty and set workable inside and outside boundaries.
4 minutes
Bridge
Check readiness, complete the bridge statement, and carry the frame into HMW drafting.
Participant worksheet
Inquiry Frame canvas
Use the detailed evidence and writing space to document the frame.
Participant worksheet
Inquiry Frame
From interpretation to a focused design question
Team / Inquiry Area
Date
What are we seeing?Experience · For whom · Current pattern
1 · Experience / MomentWhat specific student experience, transition, interaction, or moment are we focusing on?
2 · For Whom?Which students or contexts appear especially affected or differently situated?
3 · Current PatternWrite one concise, provisional statement.
We currently think that…
What supports or complicates it?Evidence · Complication · Uncertainty
4 · Evidence We HaveWhat currently supports this interpretation? Use more than one source when possible.
Evidence sourceWhat it suggests
Retreat I evidence
Student listening
Institutional / process knowledge
Other
Confidence right now□ Emerging signal□ Moderate support□ Strong convergence
5 · Key ComplicationIdentify variation, contradiction, a negative case, or another plausible explanation.
This pattern becomes more complicated when…
6 · Key UncertaintyFrame the most important next learning need as a question.
We still need to understand…
What are we taking forward?Boundaries · Readiness · HMW bridge
7 · BoundariesProtect a workable scope while preserving connected issues.
Inside this inquiryWhat are we intentionally focusing on?Outside this inquiry — for nowWhat are we setting aside so the inquiry stays workable?
8 · HMW Readiness CheckCheck each statement the team can answer now. Refine the frame when several remain open.
- □ We can name the student experience or moment.
- □ We can identify who may experience it differently.
- □ We have evidence supporting the pattern.
- □ We can name a complication or competing explanation.
- □ We know what uncertainty remains.
- □ Our inquiry is bounded enough to work on this term.
Bridge to HMW
We want to improve or better support
for
because our evidence suggests
Then generate three HMW options:
- How might we ?
- How might we ?
- How might we ?
Facilitator checkpoint and source notes
Facilitator checkpoint
Protect the learning edge.
The team should leave with a bounded question and a visible evidence trail. Preserve complications that could change who is centered, how the pattern is understood, or what the team investigates next.
EvidenceCan the team trace the pattern to specific sources and distinguish observation from interpretation?
DifferenceCan the team name where students’ circumstances or pathways may create different experiences?
ComplexityDoes the frame preserve a contradiction, alternative explanation, or important variation?
ScopeCan the team make useful progress within its time, relationships, and sphere of influence?
How this tool connects
Carry the work forward.
Use these handoffs flexibly. New evidence may send a team back to an earlier tool.
Return to this tool
when new evidence changes the pattern, people, complication, uncertainty, or boundaries.
Optional support
Preparation, pacing, and participationPrepare the starting information and access supports; allow time for the activity and its follow-through.
One Inquiry Bank candidate, its disposition and rationale, source evidence, and an inquiry team.
25–30 minutes for one prepared frame; the steps allocate 30 including confirming the disposition and drafting three HMW options. Allow more time when new evidence changes the candidate.
Share purpose and prompts in advance when possible. Offer private preparation, accessible formats, and a recorder or partner. Plan how outputs will be returned, stored, and reviewed.
Sources, adaptations, and attributionReview the intellectual foundations, local contributions, and suggested citation.
Source and attribution
Synthesized for evidence-grounded inquiry framing
This Resource Hub tool was developed for the Trumbull Sensemaking Collaboratory as a lean bridge from collective interpretation and narrowing into How Might We development. It integrates evidence-aware facilitation, qualitative interpretation, human-centered inquiry, scope protection, and Universal Design for Learning.
IDEO.org. 2015. The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design. San Francisco, CA: IDEO.org.
CAST. 2024. CAST Universal Design for Learning Guidelines, Version 3.0.