Planning for Inquiry

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Planning for Inquiry

• The Learning Cycle

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What do I want the students to know and
understand?

• Take a few minutes to observe the system to be
  studied.
• What might you want students to know and
  understand about this sytem?

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The Nature of Science

• Natural History
• Observe
• Describe
• Identify
• Classify
• Wonder

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The Nature of Science

• Experimental Science
• Observations
• Form questions about observations
• Propose reasonable answers to the question
• Test proposal
• Gather data
• Describe data
• Interpret data
• Analyze Results 
• Question interpretation

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Natural History and Experimentation are hand in
glove- This is Inquiry

• Observations lead to questions
• Questions Lead to Experiments
• Experiments lead to Interpretations
• Interpretations lead to classification
• Knowledge and understanding about the world grows
• New understandings lead to new questions

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Why use Inquiry?

• Students integrate new concepts into useful
  knowledge if they answer questions formed in
  their own minds
• Your task is to make them curious about what you
  want them to explore!!!

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Expected Outcomes for Today

• Know how and when to use inquiry
• Be confident in teaching science
• Strengthen and diversify instructional strategies

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Let us step back and look at the Learning Cycle

• Focus
• What do students know about the topic?
• What would they like to learn?
• Explore
• Explore concept or phenomenon through a series of
  activities
• Reflect
• Reinforce learning by allowing students to
  reflect on their findings record thoughts in
  science notebook
• Apply
• Apply new understanding to new situation

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How do I organize lessons in instructional cycle?

• 5 E model can be useful
• Engage Arouse interest by connecting to prior
  knowledge
• Exploration Allow students to apply previous
  understanding to develop new concepts
• Explanation Organize explorations into new
  concept or skill (can be direct instruction)
• Extension Provide challenging opportunities for
  students to extend their understanding to new
  experiences
• Evaluation Students assess their understanding
  and abilities

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Putting it together

• The Learning Cycle and Instructional Cycle fit
  together!!!
• The Three tenets of How People Learn fits in the
  middle!

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What do you want students to know and understand?

• Look at the list you generated earlier
• Refine it down to one or two key concepts

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How can we get our students to want to understand
more about these concepts?

• How will we know when they are there?

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What type of inquiry do you think will help you
achieve your goals?

• Confirmation investigations to confirm
  understandings the outcome is known in advance
• Structured inquiry Students investigate a
  teacher presented question
• Guided inquiry Students investigate a teacher
  presented question through student designed
  procedures
• Open Inquiry Students investigate topic related
  question that are student formulated and designed

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Will Inquiry boards be a good tool?

• Will learning about variable in an experiment
  help the students reach the instructional goals?
• Changed/Manipulated (independent)
• Measured/Responding (dependent)
• Controlled
• Experimental Control (secondary students)

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Student Brainstorm
The temp.

• What can students manipulate in the system to
  uncover the concept we have selected?
• Write one idea per Post It note
• Place them on your paper
• What can students count or measure to determine
  if the systme responds to the manipulation?
• Write one idea per Post It note
• Place them on your paper

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Choosing Variables

• Students choose 1 of the changed/manipulated
  variable to test. This post it is moved to the I
  will change area of the Choosing Variables board
• The rest of the post its are moved to the I will
  keep the same area of the Choosing Variables
  board
• Students then choose 1 measured/observed
  variables and move this post it to the I will
  measure/observe area of the Choosing Variables
  board

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Control Variables

• Why did we move all remaining manipulated
  variables to the controlled location on the
  board?
• Why dont we move the extra responding
  possibilities?

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Ask a Question
Ask a Question What is the effect of the____
(manipulated/changed var) On the
__________________ (responding/measured var.)

• How will changing one element of the system
  affect the entire system?
• Make sure the question is about the affect of the
  manipulated variable on the barnacle.

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Predict (hypothesis)

• Predict how the system will respond when the one
  factor you selected is manipulated.
• What past experience or research informs this
  prediction?

Prediction (Hypothesis) As the __________________
(manipulated/changed var.) Increases/decreases
The ____________________ (responding/measured
var.) Will increase/decrease/stay the same
Because ________________
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Now Design the Experiment

• What materials will be needed?
• Write down step by step directions.
• What is your experimental control?
• How will you replicate your data?
• Draw and label a diagram that shows what your
  experimental set-up and control set-up will look
  like.

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Raw Data Make a Table
Sweeps per Minute

• Make a table to show your results.
• Label with the experimental conditions
• Label with units
• of measure

Time 1
Time 3
Time 2
Time 4



Temperature 5 C 12 C 15 C
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Create a Graph

• Now make a graph to visualize the information in
  the table.
• Which axis shows the manipulated variable?
• Which axis shows the responding variable?

Number of Sweeps
(Responding Variable)
(Manipulated Variable)
Temp. Degrees C
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Conclusions Did you Answer Your Question?
Conclusion

• How did the system respond to the manipulation of
  their environment?
• Support your thinking with values from your
  actual data.

When I increased/ decreased the__________
(manipulated/changed) The_______________
(responding/measured variable) __________________
_______(describe what happened) I know this
because_____
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Are you sure of your results?

• What did you forget to think about when you set
  up your experiment?
• What else do you need to know to be sure your
  interpretation is correct?

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What Next?

• What else do you want to learn about this system?
• What can you do to answer that question?
• This is a great place for guided or open ended
  inquiry
• Where are you now in the learning cycle?

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Evaluation

• What were the key ideas that we wanted students
  to understand?
• How do they know they got it?
• How do we know they got it?

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Additional Info

• The next six slides are other ways to describe
  and define ideas presented above.

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The Learning Cycle (another version)

• Exploration Phase
• Student Centered
• Students interact with materials and each other
• Concept Introduction Phase
• Teacher Centered
• Teacher develops vocabulary and introduces
  pertinent information
• Concept Application Phase
• Student Centered
• Allows students to apply fresh learning to new
  situations

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Types of Instruction

• Directed Instruction
• Necessary to provide a framework for questions
• Develops skills to use tools to be used to answer
  their questions
• Example
• Provide information about life cycle of slime
  mold
• Explain how to properly handle the microscope

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Types of Instruction

• Closed-ended Explorations
• Student explorations leads to the correct answer
• Provide concrete experiences necessary for
  building understanding
• Examples
• Determine the weight to mass ratio necessary for
  an object to float
• What happens to the freezing temperature of water
  when you add salt?

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Types of Instruction

• Guided Discovery
• Provides parameters for exploration
• Opportunity to check for misconceptions
• Develops confidence for open ended explorations
• Examples
• Your barnacle experiment

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Types of Instruction

• Problem Centered Discovery
• Excellent form of alternative assessment
• Develops life long skills and positive attitude
  toward science
• Examples
• Build a boat that will carry the maximum of weight

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Types of Instruction

• Open-ended Explorations True Inquiry
• Student exploration leads to new questions
• Students devise method to test their new
  questions
• Examples
• Does slime mold prefer the vanilla oatmeal
  because of the sugar content or because of the
  vanilla flavoring?