Inquiry Based Learning

1. Inquiry Based Learning By Sue Gilani Abbasi

2. “Today’s students will enter a job market that values skills and abilities far different from the traditional workplace talents that so ably served their parents and grandparents.” says Baron. • She further states, “In essence, students must learn how to learn, while responding to endlessly changing technologies and social, economic, and global conditions.”

3. Why Did we Need a Change • Whenever societies have voids in them, revolutions start. In the changing world with new technologies every day, teaching methods had to change. The change from the traditional method by just using textbooks to the inquiry method is a revolution in education.

4. The science performance of 12th graders in the United States has declined from 1996 to 2005 on NAEP. American students have scored very low compared to other international students. • Behaviorist scientists believe that behaviors such as acting, thinking, and feeling can be modified or altered. Therefore, if we need students to replicate a certain behavior then our traditional teaching method works. However, if we need students to synthesize, understand, and apply the information, then we need to change our method

5. The Constructivist Model • The Inquiry model places greater emphasis on understanding, forming relationships between concepts, and relating new learning to schema already present in the brain.

7. The National Science Education Standards • Inquiry is a multifaceted activity that involves making observations; posing questions; examining books and other sources of information to see what is already known; planning investigations; reviewing what is already known in light of experimental evidence; using tools to gather, analyze, and interpret data; proposing answers, explanations, and predictions; and communicating the results. • Students will engage in selected aspects of inquiry as they learn the scientific way of knowing the natural world, but they also should develop the capacity to conduct complete inquiries.

8. The Steps for Inquiry Based Learning • 1. There should be a recognizable question which is either student or teacher initiated. • 2. There should be a plan of attack to answer the question. This data gathering stage can be through the library, internet, or experimentation. • 3. There should be a period of analysis where the hypothesis is formulated and tentatively evaluated. • 4. There should be a period of testing and checking. • 5. Conclusions should be drawn and written, with the expectation that further data collection may force reevaluation of the conclusion. The conclusions can be circulated around the classroom

9. The Different types of Inquiry • Open inquiry is student-centered. This means that students come up with the questions that they want to investigate. • Guided inquiry involves the teacher helping students come up with questions for the investigations. • Coupled inquiry is a combination of open and guided inquiry. The teacher begins with guided inquiry investigating specific benchmarks. From that point, it then changes to an open-ended inquiry investigation. • This is very effective especially if you would like to stick to the benchmarks.

10. The Research • Liu et al. (2010) performed a study on the effectiveness of inquiry on 10 inquiry based science units. The inquiry cohort significantly outperformed on both the proximal and distal items. • Sadeh states that science educators believe that open and guided inquiry are effective in developing inquiry skills and critical thinking. • Other researchers claim that guided inquiry “prevents a waste of time, reduces students frustration due to achieving undesirable results or experiencing failure, and reduces student’ fear of the unknown-all of which may occur in open inquiry”

11. A study was done to evaluate the effectiveness of Inquiry based learning versing the traditional method, Einstein Project. The students that used inquiry “showed a 4% increase in general science knowledge between their pre- and post-test scores compared to an only 1.7% increase in general science knowledge for non-STC students . • In 1995, a study was conducted at the Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools by Fred Newmann and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin. It was shown that the students were found to have significantly “higher achievement on challenging tasks when they were taught with inquiry-based teaching, showing that involvement leads to understanding.”

12. Rubric Scores • 1. The goal was not achieved. • 2. The goal was partly achieved. • 3. The goal was achieved.

13. Rubric for Scientific Inquiry 1. Is there a recognizable question which is either student or teacher initiated? 1 I did not pose a question for them. I told them that they were going to study the different characteristics of water. 2. There should be a plan of attack to answer the question. 3 The students tested the properties of water by designed experimentation. 3. There should be a period of analysis where the hypothesis is formulated and tentatively evaluated. 2 This was somewhat achieved. Some of the stations required a hypothesis to be formulated before they experimented. Then they discussed the results at each station.

14. 4. There should be a period of testing and checking. 3 They did the experiments. 5. Conclusions should be drawn and written, with the expectation that further data collection may force reevaluation of the conclusion. 2 This was somewhat achieved. The students and I discussed the results of the experiments. The students came up with their notes. However, we did not discuss further data collection.

15. New Video The lesson was about diffusion and osmosis. I first asked the students what they think would happen if I dropped a dye in water. Then they came up with the hypothesis. Then I demonstrated this. The students came up with ideas about what happened. Then I told them that they would be working with hot and cold water, what do they think would happen to the dye. Then the class came up with the hypothesis. They performed the experiment. I asked them what happened and they came up with the conclusion. The next task was for the students to design their experiment with potatoes. I gave them sugar and salt. They were told that the potatoes needed to be in the solutions for 30 minutes.

16. Next Video • The students are going to be working on diffusion and osmosis. • The first step is to generate questions.  The first thing I did was pose a question, what do you think happens when you add food coloring to water?  I allowed them to come up with several questions.  Then we came up with a hypothesis.  Then they tested it and described what happened.  Then I asked them what do you think will happen when you put the food coloring in different temperatures of water, hot and cold.  Most of them said that the one that was hotter would spread out faster (most of them did not know diffusion).  I then asked them why and they said that the molecules would move faster in the hotter water.  Then I wrote the hypothesis for them.  They tested it and they were really  able to see the movement of the dye in the cold water.  

17. Next Video • Then they were told to use the first test as the control and graph all the times for all three of them.  Then I asked them what do they think will happen to the mass of the potatoes if they placed them in different solutions. I also asked them if they knew what type of a cell this would be.  I gave them the materials and then they needed to decide how they were going to test their hypothesis.  I went to each group and asked them what they were going to do and what there hypothesis was.  Once they did the experiment, we discussed their results and then I asked them that they needed to now research why this happened.  So next class, we will discuss there findings

18. New Video 1. Is there a recognizable question which is either student or teacher initiated? 3 2. There should be a plan of attack to answer the question. 3 The students worked on three labs. The first one was a demonstration, the second was a structured lab. The third lab they designed 3. There should be a period of analysis where the hypothesis is formulated and tentatively evaluated. 3 After each lab, the students and I discussed what was happening. For the third lab, I asked them what they think happened.

19. New Videos 4. There should be a period of testing and checking. 3 They did the experiments. 5. Conclusions should be drawn and written, with the expectation that further data collection may force reevaluation of the conclusion. 3 They were instructed to write a lab report where they needed to research why they got the results that they did. They needed to look at their data, graph it, and explain it. They needed to do background research on this and synthesize all this information in the conclusion.

20. Bibliography • Trowbridge, L and Bybee, R. (2004). Teaching Secondary School Science. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. • Baron, B. Powerful Learning: Studies Show Deep Understanding Derives from Collaborative Methods. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/inquiry-project-learning-research • Concept to Classroom. Retrieved from http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/constructivism/index.html • Lee, Y. Enhancing pedagogical content knowledge in a collaborative school-based professional development program for inquiry-based science teaching. Asia Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching.Vol. 12, Issue 2, Article 3, p.1 (Dec., 2011) • Hansen, L. (2002, Feb). Defining Inquiry. Science teacher. 69(n2). p34-37. • Cakir, M. (2008). Constructivist Approaches to Learning in Science and Their Implications for Science Pedagogy: A Literature Review. International Journal of Environmental and Science Education. 3, 193-206. • BerkBerk, L & Winsler, A. (1995). "Vygotsky: His life and works" and "Vygotsky's approach to development". In Scaffolding children's learning: Vygotsky and early childhood learning. Natl. Assoc for Educ. Of Young Children. p. 24. Retrieved from  http://pediaview.com/openpedia/Zone_of_proximal_development • Vajoczki, S. (2011, Jan). Inquiry Learning: Level, Discipline, Class Size, What Matters? International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. 5(1) • Liu, O.,Lee, H. S., & Linn, M. (2010). Multifaceted assessment of Inquiry-based science learning. Educational Assessment. 15, 69-86. Doi10.1080/10627197.2010.491067. • Sadeh, I. (2011, May 10). Which type of inquiry project do high school biology students prefer: open or guided? Retrieved from School of Education, Bar-llan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel • Research and Inquiry-based curriculum. Retrieved from http://www.carolinacurriculum.com/STC/pdfs/STC_Global/Inquiry_Brochure.pdf • National Research Council. (1996). National science education standards. • Washington, DC: National Academy Press.