Veteran science teachers or scientists who aspire to. All may find themselves challenged by the need to learn more or a different kind of science. To teach their students science through inquiry, teachers need to understand the important content ideas in science — as outlined, for example, in the Standards.
They need to know how the facts, principles, laws, and formulas that they have learned in their own science courses are subsumed by and linked to those important ideas. They also need to know the evidence for the content they teach — how we know what we know.
But how can teachers learn the major ideas in the scientific disciplines? There are many possibilities, from formal preservice or in-service classes, to independent programs of study, to serious reflection on their interactions with students in their inquiry-based classrooms.
The next three vignettes in this chapter describe a range of science courses and professional development experiences that give teachers an opportunity to learn the major ideas of science disciplines through inquiry.
The first vignette tells the story of a university-based physicist who teaches teachers within the structure of a university course. The second describes the experiences of a teacher taking part in that same course. And the third tells of a kindergarten teacher who is immersed in science at a program in a science museum. The Physics Education Group in the Department of Physics at the University of Washington offers special courses for both preservice and inservice teachers.
The curriculum is based on Physics by Inquiry McDermott et al. References to relevant research can be found in McDermott and Redish, The courses help teachers develop a functional understanding of important physical concepts. This level of understanding. The curriculum used in physics courses for teachers should be in accord with the instructional objectives. However, there is another compelling reason why the choice of curriculum is critical. Teachers often try to implement instructional materials in their classrooms that are very similar to those that they have used in their college courses.
Whether intended or not, teaching methods are learned by example. The common tendency to teach physics from the top down, and to teach by telling in lectures, runs counter to the way precollege students and many university students learn best.
Therefore, courses for precollege teachers should be laboratory-based. In the curriculum that we have developed and use in our courses for preservice and inservice teachers, all instruction takes place in the laboratory.
The students work in small groups with equipment similar to that used in precollege programs. The approach differs from the customary practice of introducing a new topic by stating definitions and assertions. Instead, students are presented with a situation in which the need for a new concept becomes apparent. Starting with their observations, they begin the process of constructing a conceptual model that can account for the phenomenon of interest.
Carefully structured questions guide them in formulating operational definitions of important concepts. They begin to think critically about what they observe and learn to ask appropriate questions of their own.
As they encounter new situations, the students test their model and find some instances in which their initial model is inadequate and that additional concepts are needed. The students continue testing, extending, and refining the model to the point that they can predict and explain a range of phenomena. This is the heart of the scientific method, a process that must be experienced to be understood.
To illustrate the type of instruction summarized above, here is a specific example based on a topic included in many precollege programs. It describes how we guide. Mathematics is not necessary; qualitative reasoning is sufficient. The students begin the process of model-building by trying to light a small bulb with a battery and a single wire.
They develop an operational definition for the concept of a complete circuit. Exploring the effect of adding additional bulbs and wires to the circuit, they find that their observations are consistent with the following assumptions: a current exists in a complete circuit and the relative brightness of identical bulbs indicates the magnitude of the current.
As the students conduct further experiments some suggested, some of their own devising , they find that the brightness of individual bulbs depends both on how many are in the circuit and on how they are connected to the battery and to one another.
The students are led to construct the concept of electrical resistance and find that they can predict the behavior of many, but not all, simple circuits of identical bulbs. They recognize the need to extend their model beyond the concepts of current and resistance to include the concept of voltage which will later be refined to potential difference. As bulbs of different resistance and additional batteries are added, the students find that they need additional concepts to account for the behavior of more complicated circuits.
They are guided in developing more complex concepts, such as electrical power and energy. Proceeding step-by-step through deductive and inductive reasoning, the students construct a conceptual model that they can apply to predict relative brightness in any circuit consisting of batteries and bulbs. We have used this guided-inquiry approach with teachers at all educational levels, from elementary through high school.
Having become aware of the intellectual demands through their own experience, the teachers recognize that developmental level will determine the amount of model-building that is appropriate for their students. For the teachers, however, the sense of empowerment that results from in-depth understanding generates confidence that they can deal with unexpected classroom situations. Generalizations and elucidation of general principles come after experience and in iterative fashion.
Carefully chosen questions are designed to elicit debates and hard thinking about these ideas based on guided investigations, related readings, and small group and individual work. Specific laboratory investigations have been selected by the staff — activities they know will cause the students to confront their existing beliefs about physics.
This guided inquiry is essential at the introductory level so that the students can later use their developing knowledge and conceptual understanding to dig more deeply into the key ideas of physical science. The University of Washington program is based on the belief that both lecturing on basic principles and providing unstructured lab time are less effective strategies for bringing about student growth in conceptual understanding and reasoning skills.
Today, more than 25 years later, she reflects on how her experience in the program has affected her professional development as a teacher. In late spring of my first year of teaching, I was informed that a drop in enrollment would result in the elimination of the 2nd grade position that I held.
The good news, however, was that I was welcome to take a newly-created position as the science specialist for grades K Not wanting to relocate and not stopping to consider that my major in French might not have appropriately prepared me for this new position, I.
The district science supervisor suggested that we start with a couple of Elementary Science Study units, Clay Boats and Primary Balancing.
The unit guides and equipment were ordered. I was all set to begin my new teaching role. Never having had a science lesson in elementary school, I was not predisposed, as I had been with the other subjects, to teach it as I had been taught.
The students were engaged. They talked a lot about what they were doing and we all asked a lot of questions. But I wanted to do more than just explore and ask questions. I wanted to learn some basic principles and have a clear vision of where we were going.
I wanted to lead my students to discover and understand something. But what was it that we should understand? This is when I first came to recognize that if I were to become a truly effective teacher, I would need scientific skills and understandings that I had not been required to develop during my undergraduate years.
I applied and was accepted. Nothing I had been exposed to in college had really addressed what I needed to know to guide my students to develop the conceptual understanding and thinking and reasoning skills needed to make sense of the world around them. I walked away from that summer feeling that my brain had been to boot camp. No course of study, no one teacher had ever demanded so much of me. I had never before been asked to explain my reasoning. A simple answer was no longer sufficient.
I had been expected to think about how I came to that answer and what that answer meant. It had been excruciating at times, extricating the complicated and detailed thought processes that brought me to a conclusion, but I found it became easier to do as the summer progressed.
I also began to realize that just as important as what I came to understand, was how I came to understand it. Through the process of inquiry, I had come to an understanding of content that I had always felt was beyond me. I wanted to be able to ask the questions that would lead my students to the same kind of understanding.
The key to the questions was first understanding the content. The content had been the focus of the summer institute and as a result I had developed a conceptual understanding of several basic science concepts including balance, mass, and volume. Along with these concepts I had discovered an appreciation for the need to control variables in an experiment.
I was now better equipped to take a more critical look at the science units I had used the previous year. I recognized that Clay Boats had probably not been the best choice for a teacher with only a budding understanding of sinking and floating, but Primary Balance seemed to be an appropriate choice since I had explored very similar materials and had some ideas of how I could lead students to discover, through experiments in which they would come to understand the need to control variables, which factors seem to influence balance and which do not.
Now, after many years of professional development in the UW summer institutes, both as a participant and as an instructor, I feel comfortable teaching most, if not all, of the science concepts covered in elementary and middle school.
It is an understanding of the content that allows me to teach with confidence units such as electric circuits, magnetism, heat and temperature, and sinking and floating. And although this content knowledge was essential, simply understanding the content did not assure that I could bring my students to an understanding appropriate for them.
How does one begin to develop some expertise in these strategies we call inquiry? For me, I can only suppose that it began by reflecting upon my personal experiences. However, in subtle ways, over a period of many years, I began to teach in the way in which I had been taught in the summer institutes.
I know that early on I began to pay attention to the questions that I asked, for the questions stood out in my mind as the tools that, when deftly wielded, resulted in the desired state of understanding in me. I knew, too, that questions would help me to discover the intellectual status of my students.
In other words, where they were. I envisioned the terrain between the students and their conceptual understanding. I liken the terrain to an aerial photograph that clearly details all the various roads that lead to the designated destination. I am well acquainted with this terrain, because I have traversed it on more than one occasion myself, and have conversed with others who have, perhaps, taken a different path to the same destination.
It is in this way that I can offer guidance to my students, so that they may not wander too far from a fruitful path. I want them to encounter some difficulties and to resolve conflicts and inconsistencies, and to grow intellectually from these experiences.
But I do not want them to wander aimlessly or to plunge headlong over a cliff. I want them to arrive at the destination relatively unscathed. For this reason it is crucial, that like a vigilant parent, I continue to offer support in their intellectual insecurity. I question and listen carefully. I scan the territory to find where the explanations and responses to my questions place them, and then plan my next strategy to keep them moving ahead.
There are, of course, other considerations in the teaching of inquiry-based science to elementary students. Engagement has never been a problem for the students with whom I have worked. Science is naturally engaging. Developmental appropriateness is another matter. These materials were carefully designed to build conceptual understanding in logical, sequential steps. You do not, for instance, begin to think about why things sink or float without first developing an understanding of what we mean by mass, and what we mean by volume, in terms of concrete operational definitions.
Only then can one begin to think about how these two variables may influence sinking and floating. In summary, the most important step for me in becoming a more effective teacher of science was gaining a sound understanding of the subject matter content.
It was equally important that this content was learned in an environment of inquiry-based instruction. It was then necessary to reflect on my experience as a learner so that I could put into practice what had been modeled for me.
Finally, I must add that it is essential to take a critical look at what we are doing and to evaluate what is working and what is not. If what we are doing does not result in a better understanding of the content by our students, it could be that the problem lies with us and not with them.
University coursework, which traditionally has been didactic with hands-on activity relegated to labs that confirm the lectures or reading, has been a source of concern to many involved in K teaching and learning. Some provide examples of inquiry-based teaching at the university level and strategies for doing so NRC, Still others strongly recommend that every undergraduate preparing to teach have as part of their coursework the experience of engaging in original research under the supervision of a research scientist NRC, The above description also illustrates a change in college science coursework toward an instructional sequence that is inquiry-based.
It demonstrates the important features of beginning with exploration of a phenomenon, delaying the teaching of terms and principles until they are needed, emphasizing the formation of concepts, and applying newly learned concepts to other situations.
The result is mastery of subject matter. How do I behave to promote, support, and observe inquiry? I had been teaching kindergarten for many years before coming to a two-week workshop on light and color at a prominent science museum.
I was ready to learn a new way to teach science. I was convinced that traditional approaches were not giving my students a sense of the skills they would need to succeed in later science courses and in a technologically advanced world.
But instead of learning about teaching, we began as learners of science. First the instructors set the stage for a long-term inquiry. We played with different ways to mix colored pigments and colored light. I had always believed in hands-on activities for my students, but I had never had the opportunity to engage in a long term investigation of my own — I had only taken high school laboratory classes where you filled in the blanks on worksheets. What a surprise doing an inquiry turned out to be!
I thought I knew about hands-on science, but I discovered that there is big difference between inquiry and hands-on. From the starting points provided to us by the staff, we came up with a series of questions that would guide our investigations. The staff told us that, like scientists, we might take some twists and turns, but that the time spent on our investigation would.
In partnership with two other teachers from my district, we choose our own question to investigate. We figured that if we could explain it to ourselves, then we could explain it to others and really understand the phenomenon.
At first we re-created all the colors of the light spectrum and then determined what shadows each created. As predicted, our investigation took many twists and turns, but each gave us a new piece of the puzzle. For example, with staff assistance, we made visits to other exhibits, one of which was color removal, a demonstration of how removing colors by putting colored filters in front of a light source changed the light that reached our eye. We also read about the frequencies of visible light and about how the eye perceives those frequencies.
If we had more time we could have gone in many more directions. As it was, we felt we had learned a tremendous amount of science content and also how to go about answering our own questions. As we worked, we talked with other investigators, shared ideas, and began to understand how important it is to collaborate.
When the time came to share our inquiries, we were amazed to see how far our group had come in a few short days and how well our investigation meshed with the other inquiries into light and color. As elementary school teachers, most of us had never undertaken independent investigations in any of the sciences. We felt proud of our ability to pick a question and pursue it to some conclusions.
In addition, by experiencing inquiry firsthand we came to appreciate some of its critical pieces, such as the power of questioning at every stage. Establishing a question to pursue at first was important, but so were other questions, such as, how can you explain what you observe? What evidence do you have that your explanation is a good one? Is there an alternative explanation you can think of and why is your other one more credible?
We were given models, materials, and subtle guidance for how to inquire. We learned important scientific content by experimenting, interacting with scientists, and consulting a variety of resources, including the exhibits at the museum. We gained an understanding about the complex interplay of color addition light and color subtraction pigment and about what causes the colors that we see.
We tasted firsthand the sense of competence and confidence that comes with being a self-reliant learner. As she and other participants explored light and color, they came to understand inquiry as a long-term and often unpredictable process. They learned how to learn with and from others pursuing similar scientific questions, the importance of models and materials, and how to communicate their findings to others.
As illustrated by the three vignettes in this section, learning science through inquiry gives teachers opportunities to learn firsthand several essential aspects of inquiry-based teaching:.
How both science subject matter and inquiry outcomes can be built into learning experiences. How a deeper understanding of scientific concepts can promote discussion and the formulation of productive questions. How the essential features of classroom inquiry can be woven into a learning experience.
As important as it is for teachers to understand inquiry, develop their skills of inquiry, and learn science concepts through inquiry, teachers also need to learn how to teach this way. This can be done through professional development that extends their own inquiries to the implications for their teaching. Or it can be done through professional development designed especially to help teachers teach through inquiry. After my investigation into colored light at the science museum, I began to consider seriously how I might begin to create a classroom environment focused on inquiry for my kindergarten class.
I began to understand that inquiry has a structure that I could use to enable my students to ask and answer their own questions about light and color. That was four years ago, and each year I get a little better at understanding how kindergartners do inquiry. I now have several light sources and lenses that can be tinted different colors as regular learning stations. Students investigate light and color all year long, with many opportunities to revisit their work.
The National Science Education Standards call for young children to gain an understanding of the properties of objects and materials as well as of light. We pursue these understandings in part through our mixing of different colored paints and then the mixing of colored lights. Each year the students make books of their experiences. One of my particular interests in the past four years has been to encourage my students to develop their language skills using science as the subject of talk.
At the workshop I learned the importance of learning how to ask questions, work with materials, and listen. I begin each year by modeling these skills. For example, I show them how to ask questions using prisms and shadows as a starting point. I have noticed that many kindergartners do not have the language skills to express their questions, but that they often ask questions with their bodies by moving objects around.
I help this ability along. I allow time for free exploration with materials in a safe environment, so that mirrors and prisms are as much regular parts of the classroom as are paints and sand. Now that I have learned how to set up the classroom environment, I am trying harder to listen to their questions, watch their actions, and gently guide small groups into planning and conducting longer investigations. Looking back, I can see how my own experience with inquiry has shaped how I work with my students.
I want them to experience the curiosity, success, and perseverance that I felt. I know that they can accomplish much with the right kind of teaching and that their feelings of competence grow with each step along the way. I feel that I am helping students to learn for themselves to become independent thinkers, a skill that will serve them well in their future schooling.
And they will never look at light, shadow, and color the same way again. As Shulman notes, pedagogical content knowledge. As an example, experienced biology teachers planning a unit on photosynthesis draw on their peda-. Her understanding and abilities of inquiry were sharpened in the museum program where she learned to ask good questions and design investigations to gather evidence she could use to explain.
As she engages her own students in inquiry, she has become conscious of how they learn to ask questions about scientific phenomena and how she can help them do so. She observes how they combine their developing language skills with use of their bodies. She is learning what materials stimulate her children and help them develop explanations of light and color.
She has arranged the learning environment to reflect all of the essential features of classroom inquiry.
Other kinds of professional development programs focus more directly on inquiry-based teaching. They help teachers think in new ways about what they want their students to learn, how they can help them learn it, and how they will know whether and what students have learned.
Preservice or graduate courses and in-service workshops are still the most prevalent formats for teachers to develop and improve their inquiry teaching. But many other strategies also are being used throughout the country to help both prospective and practicing teachers learn more about teaching science through inquiry.
Loucks-Horsley et al. Some examples of this kind of professional development are the study of videos of classroom teaching; discussion of written cases of teaching dilemmas; and study of curriculum materials and related student work assignments, lab reports, assessments, etc. Written teaching cases and videotapes of teaching are especially useful in allowing teachers to examine many aspects of inquiry-based teaching and learning.
Student thinking can be analyzed as students respond to problems or questions posed by the teacher or to those that they themselves have posed. Teachers can study the responses given by the teacher in the video or case study and the effect of those responses on the students. They also can consider the teaching decisions that were or could be made to help the students learn. Looking at student work, such as the write-up of an inquiry or the results of a performance assessment, can be a valuable process for teachers.
Has the student asked a question that can be addressed? Does the design of the investigation demonstrate that the student understands how to control variables? Is it based on evidence? Has the student applied his or her new knowledge appropriately to this new situation? Working with curriculum materials can take many forms. For about 20 years I have been researching the effects of cooperative learning on students' learning in science, mathematics, and social science content areas in elementary and secondary schools, and the majority of the findings have indicated that cooperative learning where students work together to investigate a problem or solve a dilemma can be used successfully to promote student engagement, socialization, and learning.
Parallel to this research has been my interest in science and my concerns that teachers often seem reluctant to teach it in a way that is problem-based where student have opportunities to work together to investigate a topic. In a sense, I've realized that cooperative learning with its emphasis on group cooperation and investigation can be used as a tool to help teachers teach science in a way that taps into students' natural curiosity to explore their world.
Inquiry-based science adopts an investigative approach to teaching and learning where students are provided with opportunities to investigate a problem, search for possible solutions, make observations, ask questions, test out ideas, and think creatively and use their intuition. In this sense, inquiry-based science involves students doing science where they have opportunities to explore possible solutions, develop explanations for the phenomena under investigation, elaborate on concepts and processes, and evaluate or assess their understandings in the light of available evidence.
This approach to teaching relies on teachers recognizing the importance of presenting problems to students that will challenge their current conceptual understandings so they are forced to reconcile anomalous thinking and construct new understandings.
Inquiry-based science challenges students' thinking by engaging them in investigating scientifically orientated questions where they learn to give priority to evidence, evaluate explanations in the light of alternative explanations and learn to communicate and justify their decisions.
These are dispositions needed to promote and justify their decisions. In short, "Scientific inquiry requires the use of evidence, logic, and imagination in developing explanations about the natural world" Newman et al. Teachers can gauge the success of their teaching through students' level of engagement with the topic and each other, the scientific language they use to communicate their ideas, and the quality of the work they produce. Subtle comments such as "Are we doing science today?
I really liked the way we did Does inquiry-based science look different in a lower-elementary classroom than in a middle-school classroom? The principles are the same -- the need to excite and engage students' attention so they want to investigate the topic is critically important at any age. However, the way teachers actually teach it has to be more hands-on, directive or guided, and concrete for younger children.
What are some common misconceptions that teachers have regarding inquiry-based science? Teacher[s] often think they are 'doing inquiry' because they are out at the front of the classroom directing the inquiry or investigation or demonstrating how to do it. This is not inquiry science. Inquiry science requires teachers to be able to excite the students' interest in a topic and then provide them with opportunities to undertake the investigation either by themselves or preferably in collaboration with others.
The teacher, though, needs to remain active in the lesson, guiding the students and asking questions to help them consolidate their understandings. Providing feedback is critically important to helping students understand how they are progressing.
You have observed many teachers over the years. Good teachers engage students' interest through novelty, something unusual that spurs their curiosity and then they use language that is very dialogic or language that lets the student know that they are interested in what they think or want to say about the topic.
Good teachers then carefully guide students as they begin to explore or investigate the topic, being careful not to dominate the conversation but allow student time to develop responses or think about the issue more carefully. In this sense they give students the time to reflect and think more carefully about the issue.
However, good teachers are always careful to ensure that the inquiry-based science lesson moves forward and they do this be asking questions that probe and challenge students' thinking as well as giving them feedback that is meaningful and timely.
Teachers who do inquiry well tend have a very good understanding of both the content they are teaching and the processes involved.
They tend to use language that is very collaborative and friendly and take a genuine interest in what students are doing. They ask questions that challenge students' thinking and they acknowledge students' efforts. What advice do you have for teachers who do not have a lot of time to teach science?
Recognize your limitations but try to optimize on what time you have. Be well prepared and try to ensure that science activities are interesting -- stimulate students' interest in science.
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