Communicating Ocean Sciences Session 4: Building Towards Inquiry

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Communicating Ocean SciencesSession 4
Building Towards Inquiry
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Session 4 objectives

• Become aware of how inquiry science looks in the
  elementary and middle school classroom
• Gain experience with kit-based curricula
• Experience inquiry-based, hands-on ocean science
  activities used in elementary school classrooms
• Practice designing lessons to become more aware
  of looking for the presence of inquiry and
  learning cycles within hands-on activities
• Determine which grade level you would like to
  teach during the course
• See examples of the kinds of materials that are
  available for use when designing your own lesson

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Quick write

• Have you had a chance to experience inquiry
  science in your academic career as described in
  the reading? If so, please describe.
• If you havent had a first hand inquiry science
  experience, what do you think the value of such
  an experience might be?
• What do you think the most difficult part (or
  stumbling block) of the inquiry process might be
  for students including grad., undergrad., K-12?

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Introduction to the essential features of inquiry
science

• You will be participating in a 3rd grade
  inquiry-based activity
• Purpose doing this activity will help you get
  familiar with what an elementary school
  inquiry-based activity might look like

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Crayfish Investigations
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Crayfish Investigations
Inquiry Journal
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I wonder--generating the questions

• Write questions on sentence strips
• Categorize your questions
• Teacher adds questions if students dont include
  some key questions independently
• Categorize the entire classs questions on the
  wall

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What happens next?Rules for Investigations

• Determine criteria for investigations--what can
  you actually investigate?
• Small group discussions regarding what would make
  good rules
• Whole class discussion with teacher recording
  student comments
• Teacher circles rules that everyone agrees on
• Class and teacher go through sentence strips to
  find questions that fit and dont fit the rules

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Class Rules About What We Can Investigate

1. Animals are not harmed in any way.
2. The question isnt too big--it can be answered by
   just one investigation and within one class
   period
3. The materials needed are easy to get, inexpensive
   or already available in the classroom
4. The investigation is a what-happens-if,
   comparison or measuring question, not a why or
   how
5. The question is interesting to the investigator
6. The question is important (or relevant) to the
   crayfish in its real life
7. The question isnt a Lookup question
8. The question can be answered by something you can
   do in this classroom

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About the Class Rules

• If a question or investigation fits within the
  class rules it is investigable
• If a question does not fit within the class rules
  it is not investigable
• Just because a question is not investigable in
  this class does not mean it could never be
  investigated
• Students copy the class rules down (page 5)

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Looking at our questions?

• Travel around the room with a partner to pick 2
  questions with the following criteria
• One is a Lookup question
• One is not investigable according to the class
  rules

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The Lookup Questions

• Students use resources to learn more about
  crayfish --gt more information for their own
  investigations

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Which questions can we answer from the wall?

• Using the information they just learned and prior
  knowledge, which questions can they now answer
  from the wall?
• Students record answers together in their
  journals (page 5)

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Our questions to investigate!

• Students pick the question they would like to
  investigate
• They may have the chance to turn non-investigable
  questions into investigable ones if possible
• Students stand in front of the category in which
  their question is located
• Students discuss the question they selected with
  other students who have chosen that category
• Students at each category decide together which
  question they would like to investigate

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So, you chose a question now what?

• Students write down the question they have chosen
  in their inquiry journals. Questions may need to
  be revised to make them more focused. (page 6)
• Students also describe their hypothesis (page 6)
• Students explain if their questions fit the Class
  Rules About What They Can Investigate and then
  explain why (page 6)

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So, you chose a question now what?

• Why is your question interesting? Relevance to
  crayfish? Feelings about the inquiry process?
  (page 7)
• Materials and procedures (pages 8 and 9)
• Students would continue with the investigation

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Essential Features of Classroom Inquiry

• Learners are engaged by scientifically oriented
  questions
• Learners give priority to evidence, which allow
  them to develop and evaluate explanations
• Learners formulate explanations from evidence to
  address scientifically oriented questions
• Learners connect their explanations to scientific
  knowledge
• Learners communicate and justify their proposed
  explanations

Inquiry and the National Science Education
Standards, p. 25
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Essential Features of Classroom Inquiry and Their
Variations
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Teacher Identified Benefits of Shifts Toward
Inquiry
Shifted Cookbook
Sense of freedom and focus when asked to design own data sheets Another Worksheet
We didnt know what we were looking for so there was a broader range of what we could discover Gives results before you even have the experience
Higher order thinking skills required Didnt have to think, just look and write
Detailed descriptions, analysis and summarization Record, list, describe
I wound up writing more than I expected Four lines on the worksheet equals four sentences
Student ownership--empowering Teacher ownership--When the teacher tells you what to discover you dont have ownership
Discovery oriented Kids dont want to be told what to discover
Kids have to think for themselves Not asked to think, just do
Anticipation kept us involved Oh, do we have to do all this work?
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What about what we do in the classrooms?

• Why do you think that they are not full
  open-ended inquiries?
• What do you think inquiry-based means?

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The Learning Cycle
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Reviewing the Learning Cycle

• How would the lesson start?
• What would the students be asked to do next?
• How would new content information be presented?
• How would the lesson end?
• What materials would be used and are they easily
  accessible?
• What are the learning objectives-- what do we
  want the students to understand and be able to do?

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Whats important for students to know and
understand?

• Whats important for students to know about the
  content area?
• What do we want the students to learn from the
  activity (the student learning objectives)?
• Compare to the National Science Standards

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Jigsaw Activity

• Invitation
• Exploration
• Concept Invention
• Application
• Reflection

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Kit Carousel

• Look for evidence of the Learning Cycle, learning
  objectives, and inquiry
• Think about which grade you would like to focus on

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Quick Write

• What are your overall impressions of the kits and
  curricula?
• What was the most intriguing activity to you and
  why?
• What grade level do you want to focus on?

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Homework

• Ask at least 3 friends, classmates or faculty the
  following question
• What causes the seasons?
• Write down their responses and bring the notes to
  class next week to turn in