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Inquiry-Based Teaching is the art of creating situations in which students take the role of scientists. In these situations, students take the initiative to observe and question phenomena; pose explanations of what they see; devise and conduct tests to support or contradict their theories; analyze data; draw conclusions from experimental data; design and build models; or any combination of these.
These learning situations are open-ended in that they do not aim to achieve a single "right" answer. Nevertheless, students work under clear standards. They learn to observe keenly and thoroughly and to pose questions that are answerable, in part or in whole, through some meaningful test or exploration. They engage in trial and error, and they learn to analyze and reason carefully.
Inquiry is a complex idea that means many things to many people in many contexts. Our interest in inquiry at the Center for Inquiry-Based Learning stems from our experiences as scientists, teachers, and students. What follows is a series of snippets to give you the flavor of what we mean by inquiry. A strict definition, if possible, would probably be too restrictive.
Inquiry creates opportunities for teachers to learn how their students' minds work. Teachers can then apply these insights to set up appropriate learning situations and facilitate students' pursuit of knowledge. Some of the skills that teachers learn when using inquiry include:
For another description of these attributes, follow this link to a short piece written by Mary Hebrank, one of our staff at CIBL. Mary wrote this article from her perspective as a middle school science teacher. Why Inquiry?
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Inquiry-Based Teaching is the art of creating situations in which students take the role of scientists. In these situations, students take the initiative to observe and question phenomena; pose explanations of what they see; devise and conduct tests to support or contradict their theories; analyze data; draw conclusions from experimental data; design and build models; or any combination of these.
These learning situations are open-ended in that they do not aim to achieve a single "right" answer. Nevertheless, students work under clear standards. They learn to observe keenly and thoroughly and to pose questions that are answerable, in part or in whole, through some meaningful test or exploration. They engage in trial and error, and they learn to analyze and reason carefully.
Inquiry is a complex idea that means many things to many people in many contexts. Our interest in inquiry at the Center for Inquiry-Based Learning stems from our experiences as scientists, teachers, and students. What follows is a series of snippets to give you the flavor of what we mean by inquiry. A strict definition, if possible, would probably be too restrictive.
Inquiry creates opportunities for teachers to learn how their students' minds work. Teachers can then apply these insights to set up appropriate learning situations and facilitate students' pursuit of knowledge. Some of the skills that teachers learn when using inquiry include:
For another description of these attributes, follow this link to a short piece written by Mary Hebrank, one of our staff at CIBL. Mary wrote this article from her perspective as a middle school science teacher. Why Inquiry?
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Inquiry is the art and science of asking questions about the natural world and finding the answers to those questions. It involves careful observation and measurement, hypothesizing, interpreting, and theorizing. It requires experimentation, reflection, and recognition of the strengths and weaknesses of its own methods.
Inquiry is what scientists do. They usually do it in a formal and systematic way, and in the process, contribute to the collective body of information we call knowledge.
Inquiry-based learning is a way of acquiring knowledge through the process of inquiry. In inquiry-based learning, students either ask their own questions or are posed a question by the teacher. In the former case the question concerns a topic the students wish to learn about, and in the latter case the question concerns a topic the teacher wishes students to learn about. Regardless of the source of the question, inquiry-based learning requires that students play a major role in answering the question. This can occur through designing and executing controlled experiments, making measurements and observations, or building and testing models.
The simple answer is that inquiry methods provide an excellent way to teach science to all students. However, this statement immediately raises another question: What constitutes excellent science teaching? I have distilled my ideas of excellent science teaching into nine features, which are described below. Along with the descriptions are my thoughts on the ways in which inquiry-based methods are consistent with these features.
Science is taught as a process as well as a body of content.
Science is a systematic process of inquiry about natural phenomena. It is through this systematic process of inquiry that the content of scientific knowledge is derived. When science is taught as a process of inquiry, students learn how to be scientists. When students use inquiry to discover content, they not only learn a great variety of facts and concepts, but they also learn how these are related to each other, and how it is that we human beings come to understand our world and add to the great body of information we call knowledge.
The science content being taught relates to students' everyday experiences, capitalizes on students' questions and curiosity, and encourages more questions and curiosity.
Middle school students are in the process of moving away from the safe and familiar worlds of their own families, out into the larger world beyond. Before they can begin to formulate their ideas about how they fit into that larger world, they need to understand just what that larger world consists of. As a result, they are full of questions. They have just discovered that there is a huge world out there and they want very much to know how it works.
Inquiry-based methods are all about asking questions, so students are encouraged to ask the questions that will help them find out how the world works. Asking good questions, questions that both can be answered and will produce meaningful answers, takes practice. An inquiry-based science class gives students this practice, and allows them to experience the rewards that come from finding the answers to good, challenging questions.
Instruction minimizes or eliminates lecture and textbook methods.
These traditional methods of instruction view students as empty vessels into which the teacher can pour information that the students will immediately understand, remember, and be able to apply to novel situations. We now know that this passive model of student learning simply does not work for the vast majority of students. Instead, students need active, hands-on and minds-on experiences from which they can construct their own knowledge. Early adolescents are full of energy, both physically and intellectually, and they are eager to apply that energy to understanding the world around them.
Inquiry-based methods provide concrete, active learning experiences; they also give students the opportunity to develop the initiative, problem solving, decision-making, and research skills needed to become life-long learners. When students are provided with appropriate experiences, they can use these skills and habits of mind to construct their own knowledge bases.
Instructional methods take into consideration the different developmental stages of students.
In the middle grades, students are at widely varying places within the concrete-to-abstract reasoning transition zone. Not only is there great variation between students, but there can also be variation within individual students. One student may, for example, be able to solve multi-step algebraic equations, indicating a high level of abstract thinking in mathematics, but may have trouble understanding the abstract scientific concept of density. Meanwhile, other students in the same class may be struggling with one-step algebraic equations, having barely begun the move from concrete to abstract reasoning. Therefore, all science instruction needs to be flexible enough to accommodate the cognitive differences among students.
Inquiry-based methods are inherently flexible. Students tackle the questions or the parts of the questions they are capable of formulating themselves, and answer them using the tools that are accessible to them. In science, there are generally multiple approaches to the solution of a problem. When students are allowed to use their natural inventiveness, they draw upon their own academic strengths to solve problems, and like scientists, may come up with several solution paths.
Assessment methods allow students to demonstrate proficiency in a variety of ways.
Just as students vary in their cognitive development, they also vary in their learning styles, academic and artistic strengths, and interests. Some may have strong verbal skills and can demonstrate what they know through essays; others are artistically inclined and can draw detailed diagrams to illustrate concepts. Some may be able to compare and contrast information using graphs, while still others can use simple props to act out scientific ideas. In the same way that science instruction needs to be flexible enough to accommodate the cognitive differences among students, assessment methods also need to be flexible and varied enough to allow students to use their own strengths to show what they have learned.
The inherent flexibility of inquiry-based teaching allows students to demonstrate their achievements in a variety of ways. Scientists use a variety of methods to communicate their findings, and students can do likewise. Written papers, oral reports, colorful diagrams, graphs, and tables can all be used by students to show what they have learned. Since much of the learning is about the process of inquiry, students can and should also be assessed on their growing abilities to formulate hypotheses, design experiments, and analyze their results. The more holistic assessment methods necessitated by these skills provide a better picture of overall intellectual growth than would the snapshot that is the result of a multiple-choice test.
Inquiry science teaching can be integrated with math, social studies, and/or language arts curricula.
Science does not happen in isolation; it is heavily influenced by the cultural environment in which it is practiced. Most scientific research addresses, either directly or indirectly, a problem embedded in a social context, and middle school students can encounter these problems through their classes in social studies and/or language arts. In addition, scientific research draws upon tools from other disciplines, most notably mathematics.
Inquiry-based methods can easily be applied to the questions that arise in the other core subject areas students encounter each day. In many cases, the science teacher can anticipate and plan for the questions that will naturally arise. Likewise, any recently acquired mathematical tools can be put to good use in the measurement and data analysis techniques that accompany scientific inquiry.
Inquiry facilitates the development of good communication skills through the sharing of scientific ideas and findings and allows students to learn from each other.
Science is a social endeavor, and social endeavors require good communication. Furthermore, the objectivity and systematic methods of science require precise communication for the accurate sharing of methods and findings.
Similarly, learning is a social endeavor, and when students have active roles in constructing their own knowledge through inquiry methods, they benefit greatly from the frequent exchange of ideas for hypotheses, experimental methods, and interpretations of results with their peers, and not just with the teacher. Through these ongoing interactions with each other, students become more skilled not only with the methods of science, but also with the skills of communication that are essential to science and all other disciplines.
Inquiry helps to create critical--as in questioning and skeptical--citizens and consumers.
The process of science involves the critical and logical examination of evidence, and the acknowledgment that alternative explanations for phenomena may exist.
Middle school students, as well as adults, are subject to a barrage of information from various media, some of which may be inaccurate or misleading. Inquiry-based teaching methods allow students to see for themselves how scientists must scrutinize both the evidence and the conclusions. This ability to be critical helps students to subsequently question the validity of data and causal relationships cited in advertising, news reports, and other sources they encounter on a daily basis, allowing them to become truly independent thinkers.
Inquiry contributes to the ultimate goal of enabling students to become good stewards of their own bodies and of the planet they live on.
A good science education should include those concepts and ideas that will allow students to make informed choices about their own present and future lifestyles, choices that will in part determine the short- and long-term health of themselves and the earth. A strong science education will convey not only the content base needed to make such informed decisions, but will also convey to students that they have the right, capacity, and responsibility to make them.
Making good choices is a sign of maturity, and the open-endedness of inquiry gives students a great deal of practice in making non-trivial choices and learning from the consequences of those choices. Furthermore, scientific inquiry involves multiple iterations of observation, prediction, and conclusion. All of these elements contribute to the ability to make informed and conscientious choices throughout life.
You may print this article directly from this web page, but you may lose some
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You may use this hyperlink to download the article as a Microsoft Word file: Why
Inquiry?
Copyright © 2000 by Mary Hebrank. All rights reserved.
Revised: August 21, 2000
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