A finished piece of work no longer tells you whether any thinking happened.
You used to read a final draft and know roughly what went on. Now a clean paragraph proves nothing — it could be a student’s best week, or ninety seconds with a chatbot. The answer isn’t detection software. It’s capturing the messy middle while it is still happening. Cornell Notes are the cheapest instrument for that, and most teachers already own them — just pointed the wrong way: at students, as a compliance exercise, instead of at you, as a diagnostic.
In 45 minutes, you'll walk away with
Everything here runs inside a lesson you are already teaching next week. No new unit, no new platform.
The five-second diagnostic read
Look at a student’s Cues column and tell productive struggle from quiet surrender. A blank column and a column full of hard questions need opposite responses — you’ll practise telling them apart on real examples.
The pre-populated Cues column
The one move that stops the template becoming organised copying: you fill the Cues column with disciplinary prompts before students ever see it. Worked versions come ready for humanities, science & maths, and design & arts.
The 90-second intervention
What to do with a stuck student instead of rescuing them or walking past. The read tells you which they need — a provocation, a heuristic, or one bottleneck skill taught on the spot.
The facilitation script
“Read one question from your Cues column.” Students answer from a thought they already recorded rather than inventing one under pressure — which is what actually lowers the cost of speaking up in your room.
The template, ready to assign
A Google Doc you copy and push to Classroom or Canvas the same day, plus the teacher-facing guide to what each column is telling you.
A Cornell scaffold that doubles as your diagnostic dashboard
Not a blank worksheet. The Cues column arrives pre-populated with disciplinary prompts, so what students write back tells you where each of them actually is — while there is still time to do something about it.
Cues & prompts
The hook
What is my initial “I wonder…”?
Disciplinary lenses
What is the source’s perspective? What is the central variable?
Naming the dip
Where is the bottleneck? What is confusing right now?
Connections
What evidence supports this claim?
Notes & evidence
Record your thinking here — transform the information, don’t copy it across.
Summary — the formative checkpoint
Synthesise your notes. What is the big idea, and how has your thinking shifted since the provocation?
Yours as a Google Doc: make a copy and assign it the same day.
This is for you if
- You teach K-12 — IB (PYP, MYP, DP, CP) or any inquiry-based curriculum — and set work students research on their own
- You can’t tell who is genuinely stuck and who has quietly handed the thinking to a chatbot until the deadline
- You want a diagnostic that runs inside a lesson you’re already teaching, not another initiative
Skip it if
- You’re looking for AI-detection software or a plagiarism policy — this is about designing tasks where thinking is visible, not policing output
- You want the research literature on note-taking — we practise; theory gets five minutes
Bonus: The Inquiry-Driven Classroom Starter Kit
Register and all five field guides land in your confirmation email — 60+ templates, 50 driving questions, and AI-resilient task designs.
The Lesson Flip Kit
12-page guide · 10 templates
The Differentiated Inquiry Toolkit
10-page guide
The Question Flip
9-page guide · 50 questions
The 30-Second Close
6-page guide
The AI-Resilient Lesson Design Guide
8-page guide
The kit is free either way at edodo.app/download/inquiry-starter-kit — registering just saves you the form.
Ioana Badicioiu
Workshop Leader · Coordinator, The Inquiry-Driven Educator
International educator and inquiry practitioner supporting concept-based learning across the DP and MYP programme.
Brian Jackson
Workshop Leader · The Inquiry-Driven Educator
International educator focused on inquiry-driven practice and disciplinary thinking in the secondary classroom. Brian works with MYP, DP and CP teachers on making quality visible to students — exemplars, criteria, and the questions that drive real thinking.
Ioana and Brian teach this the way they teach everything: you experience the move as a learner first, then plan it as a teacher.
Will there be a recording?
Yes — every registrant gets the recording. But the middle of the session is you working with other educators and getting live feedback, and that part doesn’t survive being watched later. Come live if you can.
Is it really free? What’s the catch?
Really free, no card, and the toolkit is yours regardless. These sessions are how Ioana and Brian teach — if you love working with them, their seven-week certificate is the deeper version. No pitch beyond one slide at the end.
Do I need to prepare anything?
No. It helps to have one upcoming lesson in mind — you’ll build the Cues column for that lesson’s task, so you leave with something you can actually assign.
What about my timezone?
This page, your confirmation email, and the calendar invite all show the session in your local time. One link, works everywhere.
Who is this NOT for?
School leaders looking for a policy framework, and anyone hoping to listen with the camera off — the session is built around doing.
Do I need to teach IB?
No. The examples come from IB classrooms because that’s where Ioana and Brian teach, but nothing in the session depends on an IB programme. It works in any curriculum where students research something and then produce something.
Is this just about Cornell Notes?
The template is the vehicle, not the point. What you’re practising is reading a student’s in-progress thinking. If your school already uses a different scaffold, the diagnostic reads transfer to it — bring yours.
Stop grading the product. Start reading the thinking.
Saturday, August 15, 2026, 8:00 AM – 8:45 AM UTC
Free · Live on Zoom · 45 minutes · No prep needed
Save my seat — free