Inquiry Flashcards
What is the Inquiry Method:
1) . Are the children required to go beyond the given information to gain new insights?
2) . Are the children problem solving? Looking for answers or generalizations original to them?
* If “yes” to both, then it is Inquiry
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Evaluation, Synthesis, Analysis, Application, Comprehension, Knowledge.
Why the Inquiry Method:
Promotes Concrete Learning
Promotes Intrinsic Motivation
Promotes Manipulation of Objects
Suggestions for New Teachers:
Develop Questioning Skills.
Wait Time (allow 5-10 seconds before allowing students to respond).
Promote High Level of Student Engagement.
High Level of Student Engagement:
1) . Individual Investigation
2) . Group Investigation
3) . Pupil-Teacher Discussion
4) . Pupil Demonstration
5) . Teacher Demonstration
6) . Teacher-Centered Activity
7) . Seat Work
Paradigm:
Often referred to as common patterns of thought.
Changing Emphases for the Teaching Standards:
Less Emphasis On:
Treating all students alike and responding to the group as a whole.
Rigidly following curriculum.
Focusing on student acquisition of information. Presenting scientific knowledge through lecture, text, and demonstration.
Asking for recitation of acquired knowledge.
Testing students for factual information at the end of the unit or chapter.
Maintaining responsibility and authority.
Supporting competition.
Working alone.
More Emphasis On:
Understanding and responding to individual student’s interests, strengths, experiences, and needs.
Selecting and adapting curriculum.
Focusing on student understanding and use of scientific knowledge, ideas, and inquiry processes.
Guiding students in active and extended scientific inquiry. Providing opportunities for scientific discussion and debate among students.
Continuously assessing student understanding.
Sharing responsibility for learning with students. Supporting a classroom community with cooperation, shared responsibility, and respect.
Working with other teachers to enhance the science program.
Teachers of Science Guide and Facilitate Learning by:
- Focus and support inquiries while interacting with students.
- Orchestrate discourse among students about scientific ideas.
- Challenge students to accept and share responsibility for their own learning.
- Recognize and respond to student diversity and encourage all students to participate fully in science learning.
- Encourage and model the skills of scientific inquiry, as well as the curiosity, openness to new ideas and data, and skepticism that characterize science.
Goals for School Science:
- Experience the richness and excitement of knowing about and understanding the natural world.
- Use appropriate scientific processes and principles in making personal decisions.
- Engage intelligently in public discourse and debate about matters of scientific and technological concern.
- Increase their economic productivity through the use of the knowledge, understanding, and skills of the scientifically literate person in their careers.
Vygotsky’s Theory of Constructivism:
The role of culture and society in mental development.
Cognitive Development is a matter of an individual’s social interaction within the environment.
Cultural Mediation:
To try to end a quarrel between two people, groups, countries etc
Zone of Proximal Development:
Used to indicate the difference between what a child can do with the help of a more knowledgeable person and what the child can do independently.
Collaboration:
When you work together with another person or group to achieve something, especially in science or art.
Science Vocabulary:
Should remain in the context of what is read; it should not be encountered as a separate, out-of-context, memorization drill.
Science Instruction:
Should be a model of how science is performed by scientists/
Constructivist Curricular Models:
Describe the learning process in terms of the student—not the teacher or content.
Inquiry and the 6E Model:
ENGAGEMENT:
- The children are presented an interesting question to explore with their peers.
- Children develop their own questions to explore based on the group’s activity.
- Spontaneous concepts and other prior knowledge are recalled as a bridge to new activity.
- Initial assessment by the teacher can identify the level of scaffolding required related to the forthcoming exploration.
- Children’s curiosity is promoted, not subdued, thus gaining their attention and willingness to accept your invitation to learn.
- There are distinct improvements in cooperative learning since children are enthusiastic about learning.
- Children are encouraged to try out new ideas that are generated.
Inquiry and the 6E Model:
E-LEARNING:
- Online collaboration with other school children, scientists, or others, can be used to generate questions to explore.
- Technology such as Internet chats and simple podcasts can be used to guide children in designing and conducting an inquiry activity or in bridging prior knowledge to the new ideas.
- Students individually restructure spontaneous concepts and prior scientific concepts to form new Vygotskian scientific concepts. • Verbal exchange promotes psychological tools and signs to help students to understand concepts and internalize. • Positive attitudes toward science are developed as students demonstrate understanding of the answers to personal, peer, and teacher-developed scientific questions.
Inquiry and the 6E Model:
EXPLORATION:
- Cultural mediation helps children to form new concepts or modify existing spontaneous or scientific concepts.
- Children work within the zone of proximal development as they explore questions developed in the engagement phase.
- Children may view themselves as scientists who are engaging in the scientific process, thus promoting positive dispositions.
- Through participation in the exploration and activity phases, children are able to further develop. Arriving at a higher level of development now allows them to work with new levels of understanding. • Children are critical thinkers as they make connections to previous ideas and modify their misconceptions while processing explanations. • Children develop new questions and investigations related to what they are communicating.
Inquiry and the 6E Model:
EXPLANATION:
• Enhanced skill development also contributes to the child’s self-efficacy.
Inquiry and the 6E Model:
EVALUATION:
• Concept mapping, electronic discussion groups, and other technologies are used to coalesce thoughts into new conceptual understandings and to generate further questions.
• Teachers use authentic indicators to determine student understanding. • Students readily assess their own strengths and weaknesses and not simply look for a test grade.
Discrepant Event:
A difference between two amounts, details, reports etc that should be the same.
