Teaching Science Through Inquiry

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Teaching Science Through Inquiry

• Qinhuangdao International Conference on Education

Sari Fine, sfine_at_haugan.aspirail.org Victoria
Jackson, vajackson_at_cps.k12.il.us Cameron Slife,
camsli_at_niles-hs.k12.il.us Terri Sowa,
sowat_at_eths.k12.il.us
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Overview

• What is inquiry, how did it originate, and why is
  it important?
• How does inquiry-based instruction compare to
  traditional instruction?
• How can inquiry-based activities be integrated
  into science teaching?
• How is inquiry-based learning assessed?
• What does inquiry-based learning look like in the
  classroom?

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Inquiry Defined

• According to Indiana University, inquiry is a
  dynamic approach to learning that involves
• exploring the world,
• asking questions,
• making discoveries, and
• rigorously testing those discoveries in the
  search for new understanding.

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Inquiry Defined

• The Buck Institute for Education (BIE) states
  that Project Based Learning is a systematic
  teaching method that engages students in learning
  knowledge and skills through an extended inquiry
  process structured around complex, authentic
  questions and carefully designed products and
  tasks.
• Projects under this definition recognize
  students drive to learn, engages students in
  central concepts and principles, leads students
  to in-depth exploration of authentic and
  important topics, uses performance-based
  assessments and encourages collaboration.

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Origins of Inquiry

• Unfortunately, our traditional educational system
  has worked in a way that discourages the natural
  process of inquiry. Students become less prone to
  ask questions as they move through the grade
  levels. In traditional schools, students learn
  not to ask too many questions, instead to listen
  and repeat the expected answers.

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Origins of Inquiry

• The Buck Institute of Education states that over
  the last 25 years there have been major
  developments in learning theories.
• Neuroscience and psychology research has extended
  the behavioral and cognitive models of learning.
  Learning is partly a social activity, taking
  place within the context of culture, community
  and past experiences.
• The need for education to adapt to the changing
  world has led to an increase in popularity in
  recent years. Many teachers know that the
  industrial culture has shaped our schools and we
  are preparing to meet the needs of our current
  culture. Children need not only knowledge, but
  useful skills to meet the demands of
  high-performance workplaces. Employees must be
  able to plan, collaborate, communicate and learn
  civic responsibilities.

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Importance of Inquiry

• Education is not preparing students for a world
  that is static and fixed. Rather, education must
  prepare learners to cope with changes that will
  increase in complexity throughout their lives and
  many of which cannot be foreseen at this time.
• Most learners will probably deal with several job
  changes, move to several different locations, be
  involved in complex social changes, and other
  such issues. Education cannot give learners all
  the information that they need to know, but
  rather it must provide the tools for continuing
  to learn. http//www.thirteen.org/edonlin
  e/concept2class/inquiry

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Importance of Inquiry

• Within a conceptual framework, inquiry learning
  and active learner involvement can lead to
  important outcomes in the classroom.
• Students who actively make observations, collect,
  analyze, and synthesize information, and draw
  conclusions are developing useful problem-solving
  skills.
• These skills can be applied to future "need to
  know" situations that students will encounter
  both at school and at work.
• http//www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class
  /inquiry

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What does inquiry look like in the classroom?

• Inquiry and projects must fit into your schools
  framework. This takes into account length of
  classtime, time of year, or any other factors
  that affect your day-to-day routine.

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Planning a Project of Inquiry Learning (Buck
Institute)

• Begin with the end in mind. What do you want
  your students to know and produce at the end of
  the project or unit?
• Craft a driving question. The essential question
  should be provocative and open-ended. They
  should be to the point to as to guide students
  the heart of the topic. They should be
  challenging and relate to real-world issues.
  They should also follow curricular standards.
  Creating a solid question may take some drafting.
• Next is planning the assessment. You want to
  know how you will assess what your students are
  learning as they go, as well as assessing their
  final products. Assessments should align with
  standards and should focus on student achievement
  of the goals you are trying to meet. Rubrics are
  helpful to set up students for success.

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Planning a Project of Inquiry Learning (Buck
Institute)

• Next is planning the assessment. You want to
  know how you will assess what your students are
  learning as they go, as well as assessing their
  final products. Assessments should align with
  standards and should focus on student achievement
  of the goals you are trying to meet. Rubrics are
  helpful to set up students for success.
• The next step is mapping your project. How will
  you launch the project? What resources will you
  use and what will your students use to guide
  their exploration? What is the timeline you will
  follow and what goals will you set along the way?
• The next step is to manage the process. Share
  the goals with the students (this can be in the
  form of rubrics). Use problem-solving tools,
  daily logs for students to track their progress
  and solve problems they may come across.
  Finally, guide students with short meetings to
  plan, investigate and reassess goals.

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Traditional Instruction

• Focuses on mastery of content, with less emphasis
  on the development of skills and the nurturing of
  inquiring attitudes
• Is teacher centered teacher gives information
  about "what is known"
• Student is receiver of information, teacher is
  dispenser.
• Assessment is focused on "one right answer."
• Concerned with preparation for the next grade
  level and in-school success, not with helping a
  student learn to learn through life
• Tends to be a closed system
• Resources limited to what is in class or school
  building
• Focuses on learning technology rather than using
  technology to enhance learning

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Inquiry-Based Instruction

• More student centered, with the teacher as a
  facilitator of learning
• Emphasis on "how we come to know" and less on
  "what we know"
• Assessment is focused on determining the progress
  of skills development in addition to content
  understanding
• Concerned with in-school success equally with
  preparation for life-long learning
• Open systems where students are encouraged to
  search and make use of resources beyond the
  classroom and the school
• Uses technology to connect students appropriately
  with local and world communities which are rich
  sources
• Can be done in lectures that provoke students to
  think and question as well as labs and group
  projects
• Focuses on the how instead of the what

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Traditional vs. Inquiry
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Sequence and Development of Scientific Reasoning
Skills
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STC Learning Cycle

• The Learning Cycle is based on research findings
  about childrens learning. These findings
  indicate that knowledge is actively constructed
  by each learner and that children learn science
  best in a hands-on experimental environment where
  they can make their own discoveries. The steps
  of the learning cycle are as follows
• Focus
• Explore
• Reflect
• Apply

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FOCUS

• Explore and clarify the ideas that children
  already have about the topic.

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EXPLORE

• Enable children to engage in hands-on
  explorations of the objects, organisms, and
  scientific phenomena to be investigated.

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REFLECT

• Encourage children to discuss their observations
  and to reconcile their ideas.

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APPLY

• Help children discuss and apply their new ideas
  in new situations.

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Science and Technology for Children (STC)

• provides all students with stimulating
  experiences in the life, earth and physical
  sciences and technology while simultaneously
  developing their critical-thinking and
  problem-solving skills
• provides children with the opportunity to learn
  age-appropriate concepts and skills and to
  acquire scientific attitudes and habits of mind

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• provides teachers with a variety of strategies
  with which to assess student learning
• offers teachers opportunities to link the
  teaching of science with the development of
  skills in mathematics, language arts, and social
  studies
• encourages the use of cooperative learning to
  help students develop the valuable skill of
  working together

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Proof of Effectiveness

• Educational studies show that student learning
  increases after the use of an inquiry-based
  science curriculum such as STC. Remarkably, the
  studies also indicate that this benefit extends
  to reading, writing and math.
• El Centro, California science, reading, writing
• Michigan science
• Delaware science

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Integrating Inquiry-Based Activities

• What are the essential elements of an
  inquiry-based activity?
• How does an inquiry investigation compare and
  contrast to the typical textbook lab?
• How do I get my students started in an inquiry
  activity if they have no prior experience in
  inquiry?
• (Llewellyn, 2005, p. 65)

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Integrating Inquiry-Based Activities

• Essential Elements of an Inquiry Activity
• Posing the question
• Planning the procedure
• Formulating the results
• (Llewellyn, 2005, p. 66)

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Integrating Inquiry-Based Activities

• Categories of Science Learning Experiences
• Demonstrations
• Laboratory Experiences and Activities
• Teacher-Initiated Inquiries
• Student-Initiated Inquiries
• (Llewellyn, 2005, pp. 66 - 71)

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Integrating Inquiry-Based Activities
(Llewellyn, 2005, p. 66)
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Integrating Inquiry-Based Activities
(Llewellyn, 2005, p. 66)
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Assessing Inquiry

• Assessment includes a multiple focus
• determining the criteria for learning and quality
  of student work,
• monitoring student progress, and
• adjusting and improving instruction.
• (Llewellyn, 2005, p. 112)

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Assessing Inquiry

• Traditional Objective Tests
• Consist of multiple-choice, true/false, matching,
  and fill-in-the-blank question format
• Assess content knowledge
• Are easy to administer and score
• Work well for assessing large numbers of students
  in a short amount of time
• Are generally inappropriate for assessing inquiry
  and science process skills

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Assessing Inquiry

• The goal of inquiry-based assessment is to
  balance objective testing with authentic
  performance tasks that mirror or apply the work
  completed during the investigation.
• (Llewellyn, 2005, p. 112)

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Assessing Inquiry

• An appropriate inquiry-based assessment will
  test not only content knowledge but also science
  process skills, scientific reasoning skills, and
  metacognitive skills.
• (Llewellyn, 2005, p. 112)

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Assessing Inquiry

• inquiry is difficult to assess in a one-time
  test. A teachers position in the classroom
  allows for personal judgments of ones abilities
  over extended investigation that cannot be
  matched by an feasible external testing
  procedure.
• (National Research Council, 2001, p. 17)

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Assessing Inquiry

• Assessment should
• be ongoing
• rely on multiple strategies and sources for
  collecting information
• bear on the quality of student work
• used to help both the students and the teacher to
  think about how the quality of work might be
  improved
• (National Research Council, 2001, p. 30)

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Types of Assessments for the Inquiry-Based
Classroom

• Authentic assessment is often used to describe
  measurements to assess inquiry.
• Authentic assessments
• are embedded tasks similar in form to tasks in
  which students will engage outside the classroom
  or are similar to the activities of scientists
• are designed to measure what students know as
  well as what they can do
• provide opportunities for students to demonstrate
  creativity problem solving, and decision making
• (Llewellyn, 2005, p. 115)

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Types of Assessments for the Inquiry-Based
Classroom

• Before the Inquiry
• Concept maps
• During the Inquiry
• Monitoring charts
• Rubrics
• After the Inquiry
• Self-evaluations
• Performance tasks
• Concept maps
• Structured interviews
• Capstone projects
• Application questions

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Inquiry That Hits Home
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Inquiry That Hits Home

• Inquiry is best when students can relate it to
  their lives
• Exploring their own community makes lasting
  connections between content and real science
  situations

Duwayne testing pond water for dissolved oxygen
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Inquiry That Hits Home

• Students are learning about ecology by studying
  in our Outdoor Nature Classroom in Evanston,
  Illinois, USA

Students are collecting data on soil temperatures
to order to create planting proposals
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Inquiry That Hits Home
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Inquiry That Hits Home

• Testing water sources in the area provided a
  means to teach about water quality and healthy
  living conditions for aquatic life

• Local Water Sources
• Lake Michigan
• Chicago River
• Canal
• Pond
• Personal fish tanks

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Inquiry That Hits Home
Obtaining water sample
Obtaining water sample
Testing for carbon dioxide
Calcium test
testing for nitrates
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Inquiry That Hits Home

• Field Trip to city zoo provides a rich source of
  environmental education
• Zoos assist in teaching about
• Habitats
• Animal adaptations
• Classification
• Energy transfer (food webs)
• Environmental concerns
• Scientific professions

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Inquiry That Hits Home

• Students must read posted information and ask zoo
  keepers questions about the diet and natural
  habitat for
• various animals

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Inquiry That Hits Home

• Information recorded from the zoo will be used to
  create food webs back in the classroom

• In an urban environment, the zoo is a way to
  travel around the world in just one day.

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Inquiry That Hits Home
Students are using information from zoo to
construct regional webs
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Inquiry That its Home
These are the final projects from our zoo field
trips. Students collaborated and shared
information to make regional food webs of Africa,
South America, and Asia.
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Inquiry That Hits Home

• Students must first
• be engaged in the
• content to learn
• Synthesizing the
• information on their
• own is more
• powerful than a lecture
• This style of learning provides the opportunity
  for continued research

Interview