“Doing science” in the classroom
How is inquiry defined? – very broadly.
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. Inquiry requires identification of assumptions, use of critical and logical thinking, and consideration of alternative explanations. (p. 23 of the National Science Education Standards)
Structuring our own thinking about the planning process: The 5 interrelated phases of inquiry
1. Hooking students & building a knowledge base to prepare for inquiry
2. Crafting questions, hypotheses, predictions & initial models
3. Designing and conducting the investigation
4. Analyzing data and representing it as evidence
5. Reconsidering the model, coordinating evidence and theory
We will take a disciplined approach to understanding each of these phases of inquiry. Although they are intimately connected with one another, we can consider each of the phases one by one.
For each of the phases, we will ask 5 questions:
• How does this phase fit into the overall context of the inquiry process?
• What are typical actions that teachers and students would undertake in this phase?
• For students, what knowledge and skills are necessary in this phase?
• How can teachers scaffold the student activities in this phase?
• How can the teacher assess student understandings and skills in this phase?
This guide meant to provide suggestions for thinking about each phase. Not all strategies suggested are needed to conduct a successful inquiry experience with your students. For each phase blank spots are left for you to add ideas…
Model-Based Scientific Inquiry
The diagram shows how the phases of inquiry are interdependent and iterative.
A note on scaffolding scientific inquiry
Vygotsky suggested that we not measure what a child can do by his or herself but rather what he or she can do with the help of others. Our role as educators is to actively guide students as they experience science. Scaffolding is a term that collectively describes the types of guidance teachers or more capable peers provide. These social interactions and collaborations are critical to help students actively build ideas about him or herself and about science. The idea is that through the use of scaffolding teachers can, over time, provide an appropriate amount of challenge, promote self-regulation, and grant the student more responsibility for learning and mastering science. In this way, scaffolding requires teachers’ attention to social, emotional, and cognitive elements of the student and his or her environment.
This guide outlines types of scaffolding that correspond with each inquiry phase. Through scaffolding it is our hope that students learn about the nature of science, about how to do science, about science, and about science in relation to their lives.
Phase 1. Hooking students & building a knowledge base
How does this phase fit into the overall context of the inquiry process? / To help make inquiry content-rich, versus content-lean, the experience needs to be rooted in content related to physical, chemical, or natural phenomena. In this way inquiry can help students learn through model-building.What are the typical actions that teachers and students undertake in this phase? / Students
· Write questions that are relevant
· Provide examples, make a diagrams
· Identify vocabulary OR describe processes in own terms
· Create analogies
· Read
· Identify relevant information
· Journal writing
· Concept mapping
Teacher
· Survey class’ prior knowledge, instincts, feelings about the topic
· Create opportunities for class discussion
· Emphasize processes not vocabulary
· Clarify vocabulary
· Give students guiding questions
· Provide questions that push students to think beyond reading
· May provide direct instruction for basic content knowledge
· May provide common experiences for students to start thinking about scientific phenomena (i.e. field trips)
· Model ways to organizing class information and new information à representing knowledge and looking for gaps in information
For students, what knowledge and skills are necessary in this phase? / · Organizing thinking & research
· Defining key terms
· Know what resources are available
· Where to look for existing information
· Distinguishing & evaluating sources
· Comparing & contrasting sources
· Reading comprehension and metacognition skills
· Methods of science thought & argumentation
· Know appropriate tools for research and how to use them
· Draw connections from previous experiences
· Understand microscopic and macroscopic content levels
· Ideas about how scientists work together
· Ideas about how historically thoughts have changed in science
· How to contact experts
· Motivation to learn
How can teachers scaffold the student activities in this phase? / Start with students’ prior knowledge & experiences
· Survey class’ prior knowledge, instincts, feelings about the topic (KWL charts)
· Draw connections from previous experiences
· Engage students in brainstorming about a topic
Organize new information and distinguish what is important
· Model ways to organizing class information and new information (make a diagram or a concept map)
· Help students focus on science processes not vocabulary
· Provide guiding content questions that can help the students conduct background research
Link students’ knowledge to Models
· In small groups have students consolidate knowledge, make posters and explain to class (class can begin to create a unified model if doing similar inquiry projects)
· Model ways to represent knowledge (create an analogy or a skit)
· Draw a preliminary model
· Encourage students to look for gaps in information, revise model
· Ask questions about the topic from the microscopic to macroscopic levels, revise model
Make processes explicit
· Make explicit ideas about how scientists work together to build background knowledge
· Make explicit ideas about how scientific thoughts have changed in over time
How can the teacher assess student understandings and skills in this phase? / · Ask questions that have to do with processes or popular science
· Pre instruction quiz & post (assess prior knowledge)
· Eliciting ideas (formative evaluation)
· Create a debate- stress taking sides and looking for holes in their thinking
· In small groups have students consolidate knowledge
· Journal writing
· Make posters and explain to class
· Multiple choice class test
· Use what they know to ask questions
· Free-write & pictures
· KWL
Phase 2. Crafting questions, hypotheses, predictions & initial models
What are the typical actions that teachers and students undertake in this phase? / Students
· Creating questions that are personally relevant and interesting to the students
· Coming up with questions that are actually testable and solvable & practical
· Coming up with questions that have to do with learning science content
· Brainstorming about a topic
· Critically looking at background knowledge, initial understandings, or models
· Finding holes in previous knowledge
· Identifying assumptions
· Discussing possible outcomes of an experiment
Teacher
· Survey class’ prior knowledge about writing questions
· Create opportunities for class discussion about types of questions, variables, controls, writing hypotheses, & making predictions
· Move students from wonderment to experimental questions
· Provide questions that push students to ask questions beyond reading & beyond simple comparisons
· Guide hypothesis writing (i.e. show students how to use “if-then” statements
· Model ways to develop initial models, represent knowledge and look for gaps in information
For students, what knowledge and skills are necessary in this phase? / · Know that questions drive scientific inquir
· Know what a solvable question is
· Know what constitutes assumptions & different types of assumptions
· Understand the historical context of the scientific question- past trends in research and gaps in understandings
· Know what sort of question is good for inquiry
· Operationalize & measure variables
· Use variables in questions & models
· Types of models
· Identifying controls & incorporating controls into models
· Use part of the model to develop & justify a question
· Determine the scientific scope of a question- macroscopic/microscopic focus
How can teachers scaffold the student activities in this phase?
How can teachers scaffold the student activities in this phase? cont. / Distinguish scientific questions & create a common language
· Provide questions that are personally relevant and interesting to the students as a starting place for helping students think about different types of questions
· Create a table of questions and have students identify various types of questions in relation to different types of scientific studies: descriptive, correlational and experimental studies
· Assist students in devising questions that are actually testable, solvable & practical—explicitly define the differences among various types of questions (basic information, wonderment, co-variation questions) and provide criteria for “testable, solvable & practical” Ask: Could this question be answered by collecting data? What words/phrases do I need to clarify (operationalize)?
· Have all students generate wonderment questions and then develop them into testable questions as a class
· Model the question writing process & make it visible to students in initial experiments
· Have students practice evaluating their own questions or revising each others’ questions based on criteria provided
· Provide examples from real research- have students analyze the types of questions that were asked and the types of hypotheses tested
· Have students create new questions and hypotheses from results of an experiment (either from the literature or from a previous experiment in the classroom)
Link students’ knowledge to models
· Help students see how their questions relate to their initial models
· Help students understand how their questions link to science content
· Encourage students to be cognizant when they alter their questions and hypotheses- Have them discuss this question: How did knowing background information or thinking about experimental outcomes influence their questions?
Break down hypothesis writing
· Lead brainstorming sessions about alternative hypotheses (other explanations for the same phenomenon) and all possible outcomes
· Use if-then statements to help students structure hypotheses (following an if statement should be a description relating to a central model)
· Help students state the assumptions that are in their initial model and how these influence their hypotheses
Make processes explicit
· Include discussions about: Good questions and hypotheses are not just present at the start or the completion of a study, several related questions are raised and hypotheses devised during the process. In fact asking good questions is characteristic of inquiry across disciplines. Moreover it encourages critical thinking when reading, regardless of content.
· Help students think about the whole process, beyond just writing questions. Ask: What kinds of things would we need to measure in order to answer the question? How would you go about collecting data? Then revise questions.
How can the teacher assess student understandings and skills in this phase? / · Examine complexity of prediction and questions & the ways in which the model is applied
· Examine how students create new questions and hypotheses using a revised model from results of an experiment
· Examine if students can identify the assumptions that go into their initial model used to create their hypotheses
· Have students keep journals (or a paper trail) of how their ideas about questions, hypotheses & initial models have developed and write/or articulate how these have changed over time
Phase 2 Supporting Activities
· Work toward having students write questions every day at the start of class. The teacher can start by writing questions and discussing why he/she chose the questions to the class. Eventually students should write and answer their own questions. For example, students could write two content-related questions and one personal interest or real-life application question at the start of class.
· Alternate assigning homework questions from the book with student generated questions about content or related content. Provide feedback on student choice of questions in addition to content response.
· Encourage students to ask questions during a lecture. For example, interrupt lecture every five minutes to allow students to record and discuss questions they have about the material or related issues.
· When reviewing homework or guiding questions from a lab or activity, have the class generate one possible explanation and then challenge the students to devise two other plausible explanations.
Phase 3. Designing and conducting the investigation
How does this phase fit into the overall context of the inquiry process? / The study design is dependent on the question asked, the theoretical model, and the type of analysis that will be applied. This phase is a reflection of what is already known (methodologically & conceptually) and it functions as a method for collecting data that can contribute to the development of a theoretical model.
What are the typical actions that teachers and students undertake in this phase? / Students
· Operationalizing variables, controls and considering limitations & assumptions
· Determining & conducting a series of experiments that help students refine questions
· Evaluating data as it is collected to guide further experimental refinements
· Determining limitations of methods used
· Designing flow charts, data sheets
· Noting changes in procedures and why changes were made
Teacher
· Providing discussions for students to evaluate designs in light of theory, previous research methods, & initial data collection
· Scaffolding discussions about limitations & assumptions
· Guiding students in making data tables- drawing on questions asked, models used, important variables, & analysis that will be conducted
· Direct instruction on particular methods useful to the students’ investigations
For students, what knowledge and skills are necessary in this phase?
For students, what knowledge and skills are necessary in this phase?
Cont. / · Analyze initial data
· Know that a number of different investigations may be necessary in order to answer one question
· Know that a science experiment is often reshaped several times depending on preliminary evidence
· Know how to operationalize & include relevant variables and controls in an experimental design
· Know that science depends on repeated trials; the reliability of the data collected is often established by conducting multiple trials using the same materials and procedures
· Know that scientists constantly try to refine methods as theories evolve
· Understand how the chosen research methods corresponds with methods typically used to research the concept
· Identify types of limitations & assumptions and how they influence study design
· Know that scientists collect data to answer questions by carefully controlling procedures so that:
- they use the same procedure each time
- they only vary one variable at a time(fair test)
· Know that scientists seek to make very precise observations, which often involves using measurement with devices that are calibrated to a standard
· Know that scientist systematically observe, and when those observations are measurement, they are recorded in chart form.
How can teachers scaffold the student activities in this phase? / Examining variables in relation to the questions & procedures
· Have students create a data table for the investigation and discuss problems that arise.
· Have students circle variables within their questions and then operationalize each- students define what it means so that others can understand.
· Help students walk through their variables, identifying which they are changing (IV) and which they are measuring (DV). Then help them identify additional variables that they may not have taken into account—some of these can be written as assumptions.
· Provide students with several examples from recent scientific findings. Provide an overview, a list of materials, and a brief description of the procedures for each experiment. Then have students identify what they would use for a control and variables. Compare student controls and variables to the actual ones used by the researchers. Have students evaluate the researchers’ controls and variables and decide if they are suitable for the experiment or if the students’ ideas might work better. Have student groups report their findings and justify their arguments to the class.
How can the teacher assess student understandings and skills in this phase? / · Provide class discussions that foster student-student discourse about methodological choices- evaluate both questions asked by students and rational provided by students who are designing the study
· Examine components of students’ data tables, flow charts & student justification for their designs
· Examine students’ written limitations and assumptions & how they explained these in light of their study
Phase 3 Supporting Activities