Inquiry-Based Learning

1. Inquiry-Based Learning • Chip Bruce • March 1, 2010

2. Today • Chickscope, an example of inquiry units and the teacher role in inquiry • Discussion of inquiry teaching readings • Projects • Questions about inquiry-based learning

3. Chickscope • The first Chickscope project (Spring 1996) • Illinois Chickscope, a professional development program for K-12 teachers • Significance of remote scientific instrumentation in education

4. Goals • Access the latest scientific instruments through a computer in the classroom <chickscope.beckman.illinois.edu> • Understand the process of gathering scientific data • Interact with scientists across disciplines and with students in other classrooms • Motivation for learning science and mathematics

5. Remote scientific instrumentation • Potential to access the latest scientific instruments without the need for travel, expertise, or capital investment • World Wide Laboratory (WWL) • Many others, e.g., Stardial, an autonomous astronomical camera

6. Project design • Web site • School pages • MRI control interface and database • Scratchings (observations and questions) • Roost (expert responses, etc.) • Designing for instruction and interaction • Focus on interests, needs, and skills of participants • Encourage exploration everyday • Provide support for guiding the scientific inquiry process

7. Original participants • Ten participating classrooms in Spring 1996 • Kindergarten to high school, including an after-school science club and an out-of-state home school • 210 students, 9 teachers, and 15 undergraduate students in the classrooms • Teacher training prior to and during the project

8. Primary school classroom • 24 students (10 girls, 14 boys; kindergarten/first grade) • Undergraduate student assisting the classroom teacher • Two Macintosh IIsi with Internet access; one classroom incubator • Sample activities: Slice hard-boiled eggs to see how MRI would "slice" the egg. Identify the three available views (front, top, and side) on their acquired images. Write scratchings to share observations and questions

9. Sample primary classroom activities

10. MRI acquisitions • Remote access to the MRI system twice a week for 20 minutes each day; after-school science club had access once a week for 2 hours • Experts suggested good starting points to students everyday on the MRI control interface for acquiring images • Annotations and observations by experts to record the chick embryo development process for the benefit of all classrooms

12. “It is MRI time” • Six to eight primary students per group for image acquisitions • “Look at quadrant F3. We are looking at the top [view]. What do you think we could do next? What do you think the white spots are?” [Teacher leading a discussion in the classroom] • “The bright spots above and below it [heart area] are signals from the blood in the ventricle. These spots are in the wrong places because they are moving too rapidly.” [Expert observations and annotations]

13. Annotations

14. Annotations (cont.)

15. Sample MRI explorations • 722 actual acquisition requests from all participating classrooms • Online guide, Getting the Most out of MRI, with advice on image acquisition strategies

16. Scratchings • Scratchings about classroom activities, chick embryo development, and MR images • Experts responded daily in the Roost and gave procedural and cognitive guidance to students and teachers

19. Situated evaluation • Assume that the innovation comes into being through use • Explain why the innovation was used as it was; similarities & differences across settings; understand the unexpected events • How useful is MR imaging for understanding chick embryo development?; what different modalities are available to students? • What are students learning? • What kinds of support structure is provided to teachers? • Predict the results of use • Improve the use of the innovation, the technology

20. Illinois Chickscope • Pilot project immersed students and teachers in a small scientific community • Participants learned how to collect and analyze data, how to ask questions, and how to communicate their findings with others • Professional development program, Illinois Chickscope (ILCS), for K-12 teachers in 1998

21. Illinois Chickscope • A community of teachers; linked with scientists in a variety of disciplines; an integrated understanding in science and mathematics; new ways of using the Internet • 32 K-12 teachers (21 elementary school teachers, 4 middle school teachers, and 7 high school teachers) from 15 schools in Champaign County and Charleston-Mattoon area. • 57 preservice teachers in fall of 1997

22. Inservice schedule • 11 inservice days, with interactive discussions, hands-on, and computer-based activities related to chick embryology and MR imaging • Week-long summer session, the teachers focussed on developing inquiry-based curriculum materials for use in their classrooms • During the fall semester the teachers introduce their units to new preservice teachers

23. Inquiry themes • How do we build a community for inquiry learning? • How do we get students to engage in inquiry? • How do we ensure that all students are involved in inquiry activities? • How do teachers link to other teachers and student teachers to facilitate inquiry learning and teaching? • What are the roles for scientists in supporting inquiry in the classroom? • How can teachers study their own inquiry practice and share what they learn with others?

24. Significance in education • Part of the daily practice in research & industry (e.g., Mars Pathfinder mission) • New technology for doing science, less costly in the future • Generalizable to other domains, e.g., cell biology with transmission electron microscope

25. Inquiry Page • http://inquiry.illinois.edu • http://inquiry.illinois.edu/bin/update_unit.cgi?command=select&xmlfile=u10002.xml

26. Readings • Bruce & Bishop, Using the web • Harste & Leland,  No quick fix • Olson & Loucks-Horsley, Preparing teachers

27. A story / an inquiry • Profs: You need to focus. Can you find one word to identify your passion? • S: What’s your one word? • Betsy: Story • Chip: Inquiry • Betsy & Chip: But don’t those mean the same thing?

28. Response? • Produce a two-minute response to the claim that story and inquiry are essentially the same. • How are they alike or different? • Justify the claim, offer a counter-argument, or question the terms. • Use the readings to support your argument.

29. Preparing for inquiry teaching • How does one prepare differently for inquiry teaching? • Does it change • what you do? • when you plan? • what you need to know about the topic?

30. Projects • Food perception (Joy, Lizzie, Esther, Maggie, Brent) • Community gardening (Saramanda, Robin, Suzanne) • Equity in education (Katrina, Noelle, Emilia, Imani, Xiaoxiong) • Music (Brittany, Kitty, Miriam, Naomi, Yueh-Mei) • Collaborative social architecture (Michael) • Social science classroom (Patrick) • Afterschool youth (Licia) • Engaging teens in learning (Daylily) • All (Meadow) • Blended learning (Chip)

31. Schedule • Future readings? • Inquiry activities next week?

32. Next week, Mar 8 • Read (social studies): go.illinois.edu/iblread • Discuss in Open Discussion • Update on your project (Ask/Create) • Continue discussion in Projects+

33. Questions about inquiry-based learning