Inquiry and Integration in Education (IIE) is a course designed to develop intellectual wellness and higher order thinking capacities, which is ThinQ’s primary focus. The course is designed to:

1. help you understand concepts across disciplines, with greater depth
2. enable you to think critically beyond your specialization
3. fuel your ability to figure out your own answers to questions, and structure your thoughts
4. develop clarity and rigour in thinking, reasoning, and communicating.

The carefully structured subject matter of this course covers a wide range of academic disciplines, from mathematics to the physical, biological, and human sciences, and humanities.

Who can take the course?

The course doesn’t presuppose specialization in any particular discipline. The level of ‘knowledge’ required of you is no more than what is expected of a high school student. The course is ideal for:

• High school students who are keen to go beyond just understanding information in their textbooks
• Undergraduate students who would like to develop their academic intelligence
• Graduate students who are considering doing research in any field
• Parents who would like to empower their children to get meaningfully educated
• Educators who would like to tune their curriculum to deliver best educational value

We welcome everyone from 9th graders to grandparents and great-grandparents who are interested in enhancing their intellectual fitness!

You will benefit from IIE if:

1. you wish to improve your ability to think critically, and inquire;
2. you would like to deepen your critical understanding of the issues in the world around you;
3. you are a teacher in school or college, teacher trainer/educator, a textbook writer, a curriculum creator or consultant, a parent, the head of a school or college, an official in the education sector, a college student interested in enhancing intellectual abilities, a researcher, or simply anyone with a commitment to sharpening intellectual abilities.

What do you gain from IIE?

If you consistently work through the course, by the end of the course you will have gained:

1. The capacity to engage in rational inquiry, and become a capable debater
2. The ability to learn on your own, and make sensible decisions in everyday life
3. Mental capabilities to function well in professional, public, and personal lives
4. An introduction to research across disciplines, without any specialisation

And if you are concerned with meaningfully educating the young, as educators, parents, administrators, or policy makers, this is an opportunity to forge an approach to education that would help them imbibe and develop important cognitive capacities not found in formal curricula.

Read what IIE participants have to share about their experience with ThinQ.

Hear from former IIE participants who are still a part of the ThinQ Collective and contribute their time to help ThinQ move closer towards its educational goals:

Here is a conversation between Aditi, an IIE 2018 alumnus and member of the ThinQ collective, and Tara Mohanan, one of the co-founders of ThinQ. Aditi talks about how IIE helped her overcome her fear of making mistakes and develop a sceptical mindset towards arguments, a pre-requisite for critical thinking.

Course Structure

The 22 weeks of the course are organized around three elements:

10 Learning Triggers (LTs) : An LT in IIE is typically a package made up of readings and/or videos, designed to develop inquiry, critical thinking, and integration abilities. We will e-mail you a new LT every alternate week. Each LT will have 2 weeks devoted to it. You are expected to actively engage with the material — read/watch and think through. Towards the end of the 2 weeks, you will receive a Quiz. You are expected to submit your responses online.

The first Learning Trigger is available as a sample for you to see the kinds of questions you will be engaging with.

For another sample of content produced by ThinQ, check out the Inquiry Dialogue series on our website.

Discussion Forum : The Discussion Forum is meant for you to engage with your peers in exploring questions and ideas relevant to inquiry and integration, arising from the discussions in LTs as well as other related ideas.

Live Meetings : There will be occasional live interactions with members of the ThinQ team. Most of these will be online, but there might be a few face-to-face meetings in a few cities assuming there is a sufficient number of interested participants in those cities.

Certification

Participants who successfully complete the course will receive, upon written request, a course completion certificate. Successful completion depends on the regularity and quality of submissions in response to the Learning Triggers. It includes the participant’s degree of engagement and learning as indicated by the submissions, as well as by the nature of questions raised by the participant in the Quizzes and the Discussion forum.

Your Investment

Commitment to learning, and willingness to invest time and effort.

Time: Spend at least three to four hours a week. If you put in more time, the results would be even better.

Effort: Go through the course materials at least twice, think through them, write your responses, note what you don’t understand, and most importantly, engage in collective thinking, by participating actively in the forum discussions. (It is important to not just read, but to actually engage with the readings and discussions, and articulate your thoughts.)

Fee

Recommended Course Fee: Rs. 15,000

• Payable in installments
• Refundable if you choose to opt-out of the course within 4 weeks of its commencement

ThinQ is a group of volunteers. The fee you pay for this course is used mainly to cover our operating expenses. We have worked out that a fee of Rs.15,000 per participant is what we need to minimally function as a group. However, we do not wish to discourage anybody from being a part of this course because of the fee.

In the application form, you will see a box asking how much you are willing to pay for the course. You may pay the recommended course fee of Rs. 15,000, less than that, or more than that.

If you select to pay less than Rs.15,000, we just ask that you fill in the subsequent box which asks for the reasons for paying a lower fee. We might follow up with you on those reasons since we want to be able to continue with a system which allows those who cannot afford it to pay whatever they can afford. For any payment done through the payment gateway, there is a small fee for using the payment gateway. This will be added on to the amount you agree to pay.

We have also had participants in the past who have offered to pay more than Rs.15,000. We appreciate such generosity. If you can afford to pay more and are willing to, please indicate that in the form.

Once we have received all the applications (by May 1), we will inform you of the outcome of your application. We will also send details of the registration process along with the link for payment. Registration is complete once the payment is made. You will then receive your Registration Number before the course commences.

If you have any queries or concerns, please write to us at contactus@thinq.education.