Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Raising the Level of Inquiry with Technology
You have attended the 2 day workshop with Randy Yerrick on Infusing Technology into Science lessons and read the two articles that were emailed to you about inquiry instruction. Please post a response (approx.150 - 200 words)to the following question... How will implement the technologies that we have used in our workshop to raise the level of inquiry in your classroom? Will the use of technology facilitate raising the level of inquiry?
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18 comments:
I believe that raising the level of inquiry in the classroom won’t be as easy as it sounds. The articles we read gave a good view of freedom of experimentation and how inquiry can be used in the classroom. The Levels of Inquiry Rubric, though simple, can be used as a good indicator for true inquiry based lab activities.
The tools we are being exposed to (the computers, LoggerPro, and the variety of probes) will have to be demonstrated and used by the student in directed learning style activities before the students can be let loose for “freedom of inquiry labs.” There will have to be some cookbook style labs to learn how to use these tools before they would be comfortable choosing the proper ones to use in their self-directed labs.
I believe that once the students know what technology is available and are comfortable with its use, they will choose the technology over the more traditional tools. Using technology should help the students investigate scientific concepts on their own terms. We will of course have to start of with directed activities, but I think that these tools will help the students plan and experiment more freely. In this way we as teachers can take our students from directed to independent lab that truly support inquiry.
Trish R
The articles were interesting and helpful and inspired me to do a little research on Joseph Schwab. The rubric is definitely a good start and the discussion about "What is inquiry?" and how to differntiate was also enlightening. Certainly, as far a science is concerned, there must always be ongoing inquiry as has been proven many times over. The big BUT in my case is how to properly guide this inquiry in my strategies-based classroom. As with all things, this will need to be modified and exist with flexible pathways replete with personal bags of breadcrumbs for us to find our way back.
Moments of "discovery" and then ample time to explore and practice various comcepts and skills are what my students need. Using the new Macbooks will engender this process especially when we'll be able to stream videos and engage in more interactive sites. Learning how to make books by managing information using the Web and making searches with more regularity and better accuracy will certainly improve the students level of inquiry. With some initial guidance, they will be able to create books, keynotes and then with a partner a podcast for all to view. This practice will also improve my students' public speaking skills. Finally, they will be able to create their own portfolio or projects related to their learning and explain some of the inquiry that led to their work.
SuezGG
Inquiry instruction is the new way of saying “you learn more by what you experience more than by what is handed to you.” The life lessons and school topics I've retained through the years are the ones I've learned through doing, not listening. Do as I say, not as I do, never works, as every parent and teacher knows.
As teachers we tend to disperse information and then expect students to apply it to an experiment or assignment. Doing so makes effective use of limited classroom time. However, if we change our mindset and amount of material we are teaching, we can incorporate more discovery in our lessons. Inquiry teaching puts the learning in the hands of the students, empowering them to take hold of their education. Giving adolescents the power to drive their learning gives them many skills beyond those in the lesson they are directly working on. Life and the workplace require you to educate yourself continually. Students with the ability to determine the problem they want to solve, choose tools to examine the issue at hand, and the knowledge to use a variety of technological sources to reach a conclusion, will be the most successful. The Internet has so much research available to people, our job as educators is to not teach them how to access information, but take that information and incorporate it with other experiences and tools. Inquiry teaching will be that foundation.
Inquiry instruction is the new way of saying “you learn more by what you experience more than by what is handed to you.” The life lessons and school topics I've retained through the years are the ones I've learned through doing, not listening. Do as I say, not as I do, never works, as every parent and teacher knows.
As teachers we tend to disperse information and then expect students to apply it to an experiment or assignment. Doing so makes effective use of limited classroom time. However, if we change our mindset and amount of material we are teaching, we can incorporate more discovery in our lessons. Inquiry teaching puts the learning in the hands of the students, empowering them to take hold of their education. Giving adolescents the power to drive their learning gives them many skills beyond those in the lesson they are directly working on. Life and the workplace require you to educate yourself continually. Students with the ability to determine the problem they want to solve, choose tools to examine the issue at hand, and the knowledge to use a variety of technological sources to reach a conclusion, will be the most successful. The Internet has so much research available to people, our job as educators is to not teach them how to access information, but take that information and incorporate it with other experiences and tools. Inquiry teaching will be that foundation.
Learning by inquiry has been around for a long time. One of my least favorite college courses was “Learning by Inquiry”. It seemed like a lot of talk at the time (plus it was taught by an old geezer – must have been about 50! – that’s a joke).
Many of the labs I find myself doing are cookbook labs – probably a 2 on the level of inquiry scale by Bell. When I try to do a level 3 inquiry, students seem to be resistant. Too much thinking, or perhaps they lack the necessary lab skills.
I had read the article by Frey and Bret back in 2008 and decided I needed to make labs a little less cookbook and add the inquiry component. I changed some of the labs and was met by much resistance.
So, the big question is whether the use of probes will facilitate raising the level of inquiry. I honestly can’t say right now. In order to me to do inquiry based labs (say a 3 on the Bell scale) the students need to become familiar with the tools, whether it be probes or other scientific tools. Secondly, the students need to have some background knowledge for the problem under investigation. Lastly, and probably most importantly, you need time.
One of my goals is to get the students less dependent on my instructions and more independent in their problem solving skills. Through scaffolding, good planning and comfort in my own use of the probes, maybe I can get there. It is a good goal!
I find that the longer I teach the more I attempt to get "inquiry" into the lessons. The biggest problem is teaching freshman who need basic skills in lab safety, measurement, scientific method, and writing. The second biggest problem is resources which is improving. Setting up labs for 24-28 students is crazy even with the resources and prep time which is very limited.
With that being said, I approach inquiry on a linear or trajectory III approach. Slow and steady, as the students master introductory material and hypotheses, I will stop guidance. By January they are given the supplies and attempt the procedures. I truly believe that writing lab reports connects the concept.(painful to obtain and grade). The goal is to have them extending the labs with inquiry in the spring.
Lastly, I would like to add that inquiry is sometimes best during quiet journal writing at the beginning and end of class. With a proper prompt, they can write and pull thoughts together without the stress of a test.
The articles were helpful to me in defining what inquiry is. Since my undergrad degree included no education courses (and only 6 humanities courses in total), I sometimes find I miss out on what the jargon means. The grad school education courses I have and am taking make me feel like everybody but me gets what the various jargon translates to in classroom practice. These articles made the phrase "learning by inquiry" much more concrete for me.
I am very comfortable with technology and resolving technology issues on the go. (My undergrad degree had lots and lots of this!) So I don't fear the technology learning curve, but at times I do mistrust my abilities in provisioning and prepping the class with pre-lab work. I hate it when we get out into the hallway and the students are not engaged because they don't know how to start. I am implementing a pre-lab activity to alleviate these fears. The physics lab is not a good place to work with twenty six kids walking in front of the motion detectors so my class will be doing their inquiry based learning in front of the entire school as it walks by us in upper-G corridor!
I often feel like time constraints keep me from true inquiry based lessons. However, that is based upon the misconception that I can "give" more information by more guided lessons and lectures. Sure, I can "give" more information but students really take in more ideas by inquiring about them for themselves. My lesson is a modification of an activity I always do in physics. I am not just modifiying the lesson for the technology change, but more importantly to make it less step-by-step instructions and more open inquiry. The most difficult part will be the assessment piece.
When talking about inquiry in the classroom, one has to realize that, as stated in the article Simplifying Inquiry Instruction, “students need substantial scaffolding before they are ready to develop scientific questions and design effective data collection procedures to answer questions.” Students need the basics before inquiry can begin; thus, one has to teach the process of inquiry. I feel that the technology we have used in the workshops has the ability to allow a student to progress to higher levels of inquiry based lessons, but implementation of it is contingent on starting out slowly. Using logger pro, one could start out labs by providing the problem and procedure to the student; but having them analyze the data independently with guided questions such as: what does the data tell you, why did this happen, are there any sources of error that could have affected the outcome, etc. The eventual outcome would be to have the student generate these types of questions themselves. When thinking about some of the students in my classes, I realize that even with guided questions analysis of data will be difficult but until they can master the guided questions, one cannot expect them to analyze independently. The technology that we have used in the workshops has the potential to raise the level of inquiry in the classroom depending on how one implements it. Additionally, one has to realize that technology is a tool not a teacher. I believe the technology can raise the level of inquiry because it gives students different ways to collect and analyze information (ex data collection graphed for you); but, as teachers, we have to be the facilitators of inquiry.
I agree with a lot of what has already been written by the other participants. The idea of increasing the level of inquiry in our classes sounds great and it's a goal to strive for. However, the big problem is time. We now have to make sure that our students pass a science MCAS exam in order to get a high school diploma. Even though cookbook labs have a Level 0 inquiry, they don't take up as much class time as higher level inquiry labs. It will also take time to prepare the students to be able to do inquiry labs. They have to be taught the methods and standards needed to do a good scientific investigation and how to use any equipment. This is all time taken away from the required curriculum which we all agree is jam-packed already.
That doesn't mean I don't think we should try our best to increase the level of inquiry in our science classrooms. One of the articles discusses several trajectories that could be used to increase the level of inquiry. The one I liked the best was Trajectory 4. It was an oscillating curve. This means that at the beginning of a new topic, I might start at a Level 0 inquiry and when appropriate increase the inquiry level (hopefully, to a Level 4). But it may also be appropriate to go back and do a Level 0 lab -- probably at the introduction to a new topic.
The new technology that we are learning will greatly increase the ability to raise the level of inquiry in our labs. But again, time is going to have to be taken to teach the students how to use the golinks, Vernier probes and the laptops. I do think that the technology will also increase the students interest in the topics we're discussing and hopefully increase their understanding.
Randee E.
I found these articles very helpful. I was just having a conversation about inquiry based learning because our school has received a grant that is to be used in some type of Science Showcase involving inquiry based projects. The students had some good ideas for projects they just needed to re-work them a little to begin with a question and end with data analysis. The articles helped me to help them decide what qualified as inquiry based.
I can understand the difficulty incorporating inquiry into an already loaded curriculum and especially with freshmen who may be new to the idea. But, as a teacher of predominantly juniors and seniors I can appreciate the cumulative effect of all their lab and student centered experiences. Though you may not see the effect of your work immediately the students are better learners later because of it. Our science dept. was recently discussing things that should be incorporated into the curriculum in each different science class. Things like microscope work, lab behavior and understanding of the scientific method. I think inquiry based activities could also fall into this category.
These two articles reminded me again that hands-on activities are not necessarily inquiry-based. Inquiry is about “doing” science rather than “learning” science.
One point that I don’t feel anyone has mentioned is that in the National Science Education Standards, students at all grade levels should be engaging in inquiry of science learning. I have a question that I don’t know the answer to since I am the Technology Specialist. Is either of our districts having conversations K12 regarding developing the scaffolding that students will need to develop better inquiry skills? It isn’t something that should be started in high school.
Technology on its own will not necessarily raise the inquiry level of an activity. The inquiry level of an activity depends on the questions asked. Technology can help students more easily research, collect and analyze the data, but it is up to the student to draw conclusions. The technology does engage students and give students alternate ways to show what they have learned.
One of the goals at SHS is for students to accept and share responsibility for their own learning. Inquiry based activities are definitely a part of assisting students in taking responsibility for their own learning.
“Simplifying inquiry instruction”
The struggle I encounter is not getting students involved but in getting them to want to ask the questions necessary to get them invested in the material. Once students have invested themselves, and they have asked the question a new problem arises with the attempt to analyze and take some meaning from the data. Data analysis in a mathematical way is often not the problem but rather getting the students to get draw conclusions based on the data they have collected and to ask themselves why the data came out this way tends to raise some issues.
Separating “demonstrations” from inquiry-based projects is the challenge many of us face. While we may know the difference between the two often times we do not hold our students to this standard not because we don’t ask it of them but because they are not always clear on our intentions and/or how to go about interpreting either the results of data or the research they have obtained in response to a question or problem they have been presented with. This is in large part because until they get to us at the high school level they are not asked to seek out the answers to questions they might have (or be asked) but rather are asked to “spit-back’ information in the form of presentations and projects that might be fun and somewhat insightful, but are not inquiry-based.
Varying levels of complexity for inquiry-based learning gives us not only a “starting block” but something to shoot for. I do find however that one of the challenges we face at all levels (freshmen through seniors) is that students don’t progress to the next level of inquiry based learning as rapidly as we hope (or need) so we get frustrated and resort to “spoon-feeding” information to the students in an effort to get through the curriculum as set forward by state frameworks and as we need to get through in order to prepare our students for the MCAS (in classes such as Biology and Chemistry).
“Structuring the level of inquiry in your classroom”
I find that although the article states that one of the problems with inquiry-based learning is a lack of resources this is not a major limiting factor to inquiry based learning at Salem High. It just means that we as teachers have to get a little more creative in our funding and gathering resources. What is truly challenging especially with the Biology curriculum is another point brought up in the article, that it is often “difficult to modify the entire curriculum to include these activities” as it is often difficult enough to get through the core of the curriculum without the added lab activities. This is another reason we tend to get stuck at one level of inquiry, as it is often easier to stay there rather than challenge our students to move to the next level.
The thing that I like best about using the probes is the instant gratification of collecting the data. Yes, a lot of "science" lab work is sitting around and waiting for results even in the most technologically advanced lab. But, do we really want students to wonder whether a pH change really occurred or whether their strip is just wet. How many times have you had to hold up a color strip to try to figure it out?
I think wasted moments like this with inefficient equipment take away the excitement for students for doing and thinking about good science. I have struggled for years with the infamous liver lab. Yes it works well, but due to lack of equipment, we concentrate our efforts on collecting qualitative data. Students get the overall picture, but wouldn't an oxygen probe really demonstrate in a more concrete way that "Yes, O2 is really being released!" Wouldn't this be more FUN to have an ooh and aah session than staring at some soggy paper or deciding "Well, I think that's a 3 on the bubbly scale."
At the beginning of the workshop, I was thinking about whether using a program to graph results was taking away from students making their own graph and displaying their own results properly. Now I think that I would much rather students use that time to discuss their results and really understand how to decipher data. I think this would generate the excitement and interest that is needed to sustain inquiry teaching.
Allyson
SHS
I am a huge supporter of experiential education and after reading these articles I am beginning to realize how little my students experience real science in the classroom. They experience plenty of discussions on scientific topics. They even experience labs and observation. However, I feel science must involve seeking the answer to a question and not always getting the answer you expect or want. In the labs I normally run there is some inquiry involved in that students know there is a question to be answered and that the answer can be found by looking at the results of their experiment. I also know that I am usually stressed about whether they will get the results I want, sorry NEED them to get in order for the lesson to work. Looking back on this I realize that this is in no way the science I have grown to know and love. The science I love deals with the mystery of not necessarily knowing what the results will be and trying to make sense of them later. Having said all of this I am promising myself that the labs must and will change in my classroom. I understand that the students will need to have appropriate skill sets before going into an inquiry based lab and I will do as needed to have them as prepared as possible. If they aren't prepared with the skills, it will show in their results and this can be a part of the oh so important follow up discussion. From here on out I hope to introduce labs as a mystery. I will give them a problem, and some or no procedural help depending on skill level. I will also equip the students with the supplies and skills they might need to explore the question. Some student groups might tackle the question using similar procedures and some might go in completely different directions. I understand that some or perhaps all of the students will come to different conclusions. I also understand that their results will probably not be "right". I hope that students will start to see that most of science has to do with getting it "wrong" most of the time and learning from each try. Hopefully the lesson will come through in discussing just how wrong we were. I know I haven't really cited the articles at all but the above revelation has developed via a self evaluation using the rubrics and examples the articles introduced. In my experiences thus far using the new science technology in the classroom I have found that the students are very willing and able to troubleshoot and experiment with the technology. I feel this will help ease the transition towards a new style of labs in my classroom greatly.
I find myself teaching with the cyclical approach to inquiry (especially in my chemistry class). At first starting with given procedures but requiring the students to make conclusions based on the results of the lab. Later, having students make hypotheses, and designing the approach needed to solve the problem. I haven't noticed that level three inquiry lessons take more or less time in class, with the exception of the first one. I find it helpful for students to peer review their hypotheses and procedures during the first lesson. After the first experience developing a procedure, they seem to understand better what is needed to solve the problem.
This is a replacement post (the first one never got to its destination)
Inquiry instruction seems to fit well with the phrases “life-long-learner”, the scientific method, and the engineering design process. It’s all about student driven learning and experimental design. With all the MCAS driven content, I find it’s easy to build inquiry question time into a lesson plan, but much harder to address the content if students are asked to create the activities. If I pull out the electricity kits and ask students to explore, make predictions, test, and explain what they think is happening, many of them play a lot, but seem to learn very little. Inquiry takes a different type of planning process, because we want them to learn through discovery, but unfortunately there are concrete terms and concepts they need to “discover”.
I need to take more baby steps with classroom activities to help students feel like they are driving the learning process. I introduce students to the differences between hydraulics and pneumatics using syringes. I can do that with very concrete instructions and questions, or just hand them the supplies and tell them to write down everything they discover. But a better inquiry lab needs more planning and an open-ended process guiding them to think about how the syringe responds to pressure with air and water, and why one technology would work better than others in different situations. In theory, a good inquiry activity would keep all the students engaged – in reality, many of my students would rather socialize.
Nancy
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