WISTR: WESTCONNs INSTITUTE FOR SCIENCE TEACHER RESEARCH

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WISTR WESTCONNs INSTITUTE FOR SCIENCE TEACHER
RESEARCH

• Department of Education and Educational
  Psychology
• INQUIRY IN
• SCIENCE EDUCATION
• Dr. Marcy Delcourt
• Dr. Aram Aslanian
• Dr. Edward Duncanson

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INQUIRY IN SCIENCE EDUCATION

• What is inquiry?
• Types of questions
• How to improve questioning
• Science Fairs and how they started
• Science lab rubric
• Science activities

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What is inquiry?

• To be human is to inquire. Inquiry is the engine
  for independent, curiosity- and interest-driven,
  life-long learning. It is the ability to link
  experiences in order for learning to occur.
  However, inquiry is a process which of itself
  demands a very large succession of skills to
  proceed in growth from asking and answering
  questions of daily life to problem solving, to
  doing projects and investigations requiring
  substantial time commitments, to scholarly
  research in a specific domain.
• Shore, B. M., Aulls, M. W., Delcourt, M. A. B.
  (Eds.). (2007). Inquiry in education Overcoming
  Barriers to Successful Implementation. Mahwah,
  NJ Erlbaum.

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Types of questions

• Observations- asked as questions
• Philosophical questions
• Requests from simple facts
• Complex thinking
• Investigable questions

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Types of questions

• Observations questions that can be rephrased
  from observations, turning comments into
  questions
• Student Look at that fish that has too much
  mercury.
• Teacher Can you describe how the fish behaves?

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Types of questions

• Philosophical questions these have no correct
  answers, can be debated, allow students and
  teachers to gather evidence for discussions
• Examples
• What will be future applications of genetics
  research?
• How can the CDC control the spread of
  communicable diseases?

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Types of questions

• Requests for simple facts these are knowledge
  and comprehension questions that should be
  answered directly
• Examples
• What are toxins?
• What is a communicable disease?

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Types of questions

• Requests requiring complex thinking these
  require higher order thinking skills, applying
  earlier knowledge, analyzing information, putting
  new ideas together, assessing based on criteria
• Examples
• Why does the Earth have only 1 moon?
• Why are some lobsters blue?

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Types of questions

• Investigable questions these have identifiable
  variables or constructs a research question is
  feasible, clear, significant, and ethical
• Example
• Is there a significant difference in the growth
  of fish between using food A or food B? (Grade 5
  student, Norwalk)

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Levels of thinking

• Blooms taxonomy knowledge, comprehension,
  application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation
• Cognitive levels of questions data recall, data
  processing, data generation
• Types of knowledge declarative, procedural,
  conditional

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Cognitive levels of questions

• Data recall questions that ask students to
  respond with a descriptive statement
• Recall, recite, enumerate, list

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Cognitive levels of questions

• Data processing questions that ask students to
  use data to show relationships or cause and
  effect
• Synthesize, classify, analyze, compare,
  contrast, evaluate data

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Cognitive levels of questions

• Data generation questions that direct students
  to respond by using divergent thinking
• Predict, theorize, apply a principle to a new
  situation

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Types of knowledge

• Declarative- basic facts answers questions
  beginning with what
• Procedural- refers to processes answers
  questions beginning with how
• Conditional- refers to circumstances answers
  questions beginning with under what conditions

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How to improve questioning

• Write down higher order thinking skills (HOTS)
  questions in advance of a lesson
• Ask only HOTS questions
• Teach students to write and identify types of
  questions
• Model asking HOTS questions in every lesson

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How to improve questioning

• Make all students responsible for answering HOTS
  questions
• Use prepared materials that have higher order
  questions or verbs already on them in order to
  serve as prompts
• Do the activity first in order to elicit
  curiosity and inquiry

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Inquiry Models

• The Concept Attainment Model
• The Concept Development Model
• The Synectics Model
• The Suchman Inquiry Model
• The Classroom Discussion Model
• Gunter, M. A., Estes, T. H., Schwab, J. H.
  (1990). Instruction A models approach. Boston
  Allyn and Bacon.

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Science fairs and how they started

• 1829- Science and Technology Exposition sponsored
  by the American Institute of Science and
  Technology (AIST) held in NY showed Morses
  telegraph and Bells telephone evolved into the
  International Science and Engineering Fair that
  is still held today

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Science Fairs

• 1929- First Science Fair sponsored by American
  Institute of Science and Technology (AIST) and
  the Museum of Natural History
• 1942- Westinghouse Science Talent Search (STS)
• 1998- Westinghouse STS becomes Intel Science
  Talent Search (STS) over 1,250,000 in awards
  and scholarships

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• Mary Masterman of Westmoore High School, Oklahoma
  City, OK wins first place.
• The Intel Science Talent Search (Intel STS)
  recently named its top ten winners at the annual
  Intel STS 2007 awards. Forty finalists were
  selected to travel to Washington, D.C. to
  participate in the rigorous judging process, meet
  with national leaders, interact with leading
  scientists and display their research at the
  National Academy of Sciences. For the first time
  in the history of the program there were an equal
  number of female and male finalists who represent
  38 schools from 20 different states.
• First Place Winner
• Mary Masterman, a 17-year-old Westmoore High
  School senior from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was
  awarded a 100,000 scholarship for describing the
  spectrograph system she built. Mary machined her
  own parts, and aligned her own optics. Using
  lenses from a camera and a microscope as well as
  a laser for her light source, Mary was able to
  separate the individual photons scattered by the
  tested molecules, similar to the effects a prism
  has on light, and record their wavelengths.
• She found she could attain fairly accurate
  wavelength measurements compared to published
  readings for household solvents and other objects
  despite using an inexpensive laser. The cost for
  building her spectrograph was only 300 quite an
  accomplishment compared to the 20,000 - 100,000
  cost for commercial units.
• "Even if you think that what you want to do is
  impossible, go ahead and go for it because you
  never know what you can accomplish."
• Mary Masterman
• First Place Winner
• 2007 Intel Science Talent Search

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National Science Teachers Association (NSTA)

• Science Fairs should be voluntary
• The emphasis should be on the learning experience
• Science fairs should supplement the educational
  experience not BE the educational experience

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National Science Teachers Association (NSTA)

• The emphasis should be on science process
• It must be the work of the student
• Mentors must have clear guidelines

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Formats for Science Fair projects

• Research report
• Poster
• 3-D display
• Model
• Research presentation

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Types of Science Fair projects

• Observation of the environment
• Demonstration of a basic scientific principle
• Collecting and analyzing data
• Controlled experiment

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Presentation options

• Judged presentations
• Expo- can combine student work with competitions
  and commercial exhibits
• Share fair- students swap ideas as they display
  their work
• Class demonstration- student explain their
  projects to classmates

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Example science lab rubric

• Categories- purpose, procedures, data and
  observations, results, conclusions, written
  communication
• Ratings- exceeds expectations, meets
  expectations, approximates expectations, not
  ready yet (For a copy of this
  rubric, contact Dr. Kenneth Martinelli,
  Instructional Specialist, K-12 Science and
  Health, KenM_at_norwalkpublicschools.net.)

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Science Activities

• Life As We Know It
• People tend to be on best behavior when theyre
  being watched. But what if the only eyes staring
  at them are on paper? In a University of
  Newcastle (England) lounge where paying for
  coffee was optional, researchers placed a picture
  of either flowers or a pair of eyes next to the
  suggested price list. Visitors donated almost
  three times more money when the eyes were posted.
  Apparently, even a 2-D witness was enough to
  deter some potential coffee-kitty cheapskates.

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Life As We Know It

• What is the dependent variable?
• What is the independent variable? What are the
  categories or levels?
• What variable needs to be controlled? This means
  that a variable needs to be constant (the same)
  for each level of the Independent Variable.
• What is the research question and the hypothesis?