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All material is my personal opinion, and not that of any other organization. Copyright 2001. Permission is granted for individual teacher use. All rights reserved. |
The tension between the goal of student autonomy and their need for structure and guidance is a necessary one. Guided inquiry seems an appropriate balancing point for my middle school students. If one is to give students a chance to define the questions to be investigated, one must be prepared to be flexible. Furthermore, the subject matter and available materials need to lend themselves to this sort of exploration. If the students cannot experiment with materials firsthand, this approach will not work. To begin even guided inquiry, students need to have already experienced investigations. They need to have concrete experiential reference points for concepts like question, hypothesis, variable, control, and data collection. They need then an introduction to the materials, a chance to explore and become acquainted with the topic. Following this, the I Know/I Wonder lists set the stage for the generation of investigation questions. Students are then capable of designing investigations based on these questions. With coaching and group editing, these investigations can be the core of an exciting investigation sequence. Initial efforts will reflect a poor grasp of the nature of questions that are useful bases for investigation, but through teacher-led discussions and practical efforts to design investigations to answer these questions, students can learn how to render their questions investigatable. Teacher demonstrations, lectures and readings can also play a critical role in formalizing the students' knowledge, and introducing them to more abstract scientific explanations or theories regarding the subject of their investigations. Students who have done their own investigations are truly curious about their subject, and respond with real interest to teacher information. Authority is not eliminated from the equation, but is put in service of curiosity. Students are not fixated on doing something they personally wrote. The source of the question is not essential to the definition of inquiry. All the students interviewed were happy to do investigations prepared by the teacher, or by other students, or even from a textbook. This does not make the source of the question irrelevant pedagogically, however. The direct involvement of students in the design process teaches them far more about how to investigate than they would learn from simply following someone else's directions. It also ensures that their own thought processes, their own ideas, are central to their experience. It is much more demanding of the students if they have to "think of questions and answers," in the words of one, but the result is students who actually know how to investigate. It is important for students to engage in collaborative processes all along the path of the investigation cycle. The teacher needs to set the stage by providing models and training, so the students can be effective critics of one another. The students can then provide valuable advice to each other, and sharpen their ability to create workable investigations. Students need a chance at the close of an investigation to share what they have learned with each other. This is a chance to debate different understandings and come to consensus about what was actually learned, and should be part of the creation of a comprehensive conclusion summarizing their results. This conclusion would crystallize what students have learned, and allow them to see how productive their investigation was. Working class and minority students often begin middle school science with a low level of self-confidence regarding their ability to solve problems. Guided inquiry offers them a structure to build these abilities, and creates a bridge between the science content and the students' interests by focusing on questions and investigations of the students' design. |
Oakland Unified
School District