The Legacy cycle is an instructional model that emphasizes inquiry. Learners are faced with progressively complex challenges. For each challenge, learners generate initial thoughts on how they might react to the challenges. They are then provided with learning activities/resources that allow them to compare their existing knowledge with new learning resources. Based on these new learning opportunities, students then can compare their initial thoughts to what they have learned and publish a revised set of ideas.

Use of the Legacy cycle provides flexibly adaptive instruction that facilitates student learning from case, problem, and project learning through integrating four types of learning environments. These environments are learner-centered, knowledge-centered, assessment-centered, and community-centered. As a learner-centered environment, Legacy helps to focus on the learners' prior knowledge, skills, and attitudes that they bring to the situation. As a knowledge-centered environment Legacy helps focus content on knowledge organized around key concepts, big ideas, or major understandings that support learning in the discipline. As an assessment-centered environment, Legacy helps make student thinking visible so both learner and teacher can assess and revise understanding. As a community-centered environment, Legacy helps create a sense of collaboration among students and other members of the community. Collectively, through integrating four types of learning environments, Legacy then provides flexibly adaptive instruction based on an inquiry model of instruction. (Schwartz, Brophy, Lin, and Bransford, 1999).