LEARNING TO DO INQUIRY
WITH ELEMENTARY CHILDREN
Connie Doyle,
Abstract
Inquiry science is an important part of standards based teaching, but it may present difficulties for novice teachers. Elementary teacher candidates in a science methods course were to complete structured and open inquiry lessons with individual children. Most completed only structured inquiry lessons. Plans and reflections suggested poor understanding of purpose and teacher role in open inquiry. Planning for open inquiry may conflict with the image of “teacher as expert.” The standards may also be misleading to novice teachers, because expected outcomes are unclear.
Inquiry science is
a primary emphasis in the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 1996). Even
in the earliest years of school, children are expected to experience science as
a process of asking questions and finding answers through investigation. It
follows that inquiry science is an important emphasis in most science methods
courses. However, elementary teacher candidates often have little personal
experience with inquiry science, and preparing them to plan and facilitate
appropriate inquiry lessons can be problematic.
This paper is an examination of teacher candidates’ early attempts to teach
inquiry science.
The
Assignment
In keeping with
the tenet that experience is the foundation for learning with understanding
(NRC, 2000), an assignment called Science Learning Investigations (SLI) was
designed for elementary teacher candidates in a science methods course. At the
core of the assignment was hands-on experience in teaching two science lessons
to an individual child. Working with individual children has proven productive
in situations in which novices might otherwise have to focus the major part of
their attention on classroom management (Crespo,
2003; Doyle & Alagic, 2004, 2005). Further, working
with an individual child provides an opportunity for listening closely and examining
the child’s thinking.
The SLI. assignment was completed in
two parts to provide experience with two types of inquiry science: structured
inquiry in which the teacher provides the question to be investigated as well
as the method or process, and open inquiry in which the question and the
process originate with the student (Colburn, 2003). Structured and open inquiry
lessons had been modeled in the methods class prior to the assignment, and the
teacher candidates had used their experiences in structured inquiries to
generate open inquiry questions. To parallel the generation of open inquiry
questions from structured experiences, the first part of the SLI assignment called
for a structured inquiry lesson. Each teacher candidate based the structured
lesson on a FOSS (Full Option Science System) physical science module that had
been examined in class prior to the assignment. The second part of the
assignment called for an open inquiry lesson; the question for open inquiry was
to stem from the first investigation.
For each of the two parts of the SLI assignment candidates submitted 1) a detailed lesson plan, 2) a recording of the session, and 3) a written account of the lesson. The written account included a narrative, conclusions about the child’s learning, and conclusions about teaching the topic.
Methodology
and Results
Forty-five teacher candidates completed the Science Learning Investigation assignment over the course of two semesters: 21 the first semester and 24 the second semester. The grade level distribution of their students appears in Table 1. Lesson plans and written accounts from 42 of the assignments were used in a constant comparative analysis. Course planning documents and instructor notes provided triangulation of data.
In the first iteration of the analysis, the lesson plans and written accounts were scanned for evidence of the candidates’ approach to teaching inquiry science. Results indicated that
Table 1.
Student Grade Levels
|
GRADE |
K |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
|
Semester 1 |
0 |
5 |
4 |
5 |
2 |
4 |
0 |
|
Semester 2 |
2 |
6 |
4 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
1 |
almost all
candidates produced student-centered lessons. That is, the child’s thinking was
respected and encouraged. In the first part of the assignment (structured
inquiry) the majority of candidates patterned the lesson closely on the FOSS
example and used structured inquiry to help children reach meaningful
understandings of science concepts. In their conclusions about teaching the
structured inquiry lesson, many candidates expressed a new appreciation for the
power of “hands-on” science with remarks such as, “I would never have been able
to get him to understand … without having him use the materials himself.”
Distribution of Lessons
The situation in the second part of the SLI assignment (open inquiry) was much different. The majority of students each semester failed to elicit an investigatable question from their students as a result of their initial structured inquiry lesson. The candidates in these cases made statements such as, “I asked if she had any questions, and she said no.” One candidate stated about a lesson on liquids, “All he was interested in was what would happen if he put them all in the freezer.” The candidate interpreted this, not as a potential question, but as an indication that the child was uncooperative. Though attempts were made in the second semester to be more explicit about the goal of generating an investigatable question, and the instructor provided suggestions and examples, the results were essentially the same both semesters. In order to deal with the dilemma, the teacher candidates were not penalized for simply taking “a next step” in making the second lesson more child-centered and less structured, though they were encouraged to try to carry out an open investigation. An intermediate step, for instance, would have been a “guided inquiry” (Coburn, 2003) in which the teacher provides the question and the child decides the process for investigation.
Table 2.
Level of inquiry
|
LEVEL OF INQUIRY |
SEMESTER 1 n = 20 |
SEMESTER 2 n = 22 |
|
Open:
child decided question, process |
3 |
3 |
|
Guided:
teacher set question, child decided process |
3 |
7 |
|
Structured:
teacher set question and process |
8 |
9 |
|
Structured
with elements of open inquiry |
3 |
2 |
|
Teacher
centered (IVP): no question |
3 |
1 |
The distribution of inquiry levels among the second lessons is shown in Table 2, divided by semester. There were three lessons each semester that qualified as open inquiry. That is, the child decided the question and a process for answering the question. An additional three lessons the first semester and seven lessons the second semester were guided inquiries in which the children had major responsibilities for deciding the direction of the investigation. Eleven of the lessons each semester remained in the category of structured inquiry, though three of these structured inquiry lessons in the first semester and two in the second semester included elements of open inquiry. In two of the five cases there was a brief interlude when the child was allowed to ask a question and quickly find an answer before the “real” lesson resumed. In three other cases the children had asked investigatable questions during the first lesson, and those questions were used as introductions to structured investigations. One of the latter cases was the child described above, who wanted to know what would happen if all of the liquids were put in the freezer. Between lessons the instructor alerted the teacher candidate to the potential question, but instead of using it as open inquiry, the freezing question became a structured inquiry. In addition, there were four cases when no inquiry happened. The lessons were very teacher centered, and the children were directed toward predetermined goals. Three of the lessons also included major periods of lecturing.
Another pass through the data for possible explanations of the scarcity of open inquiry revealed that five of the six cases of open inquiry had happened with children in grade 2 or below, even though half of the children involved in the 42 lessons were above the second grade level. The sixth case of open inquiry involved a teacher candidate who had been given special permission to work with two children for her lessons. Both were third graders.
Grade level also appeared as a possible connection in the cases where the lessons were very teacher centered, although there were only four lessons in this category. Two of the lessons, those with the most significant amount of lecturing, were done with fifth graders. The other two lessons also had large portions of teacher talk, and one was done with a fourth grader, the other with a third grader. In the case of the third grader, the teacher candidate explained that she had been flustered when the child did not become immediately engaged in the lesson: “I reverted back to the only thing I knew, explaining the lesson.”
Standards and Objectives and Lesson Plans
Another pattern that appeared was a tendency for the standards and objectives stated in the lesson plans to be poorly matched. Often the Inquiry Standard was the only standard given, but the objectives and the intent of the lesson were clearly grounded in physical science or earth science. Since the lesson plan format required enough of the statement of a standard to be able to connect with the lesson, the teacher candidates often called upon the generic phrase from the inquiry standard, “abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry.” (NRC, 1996)
A closely related pattern was the tendency for the “objectives” in a lesson to be descriptions of activities rather than learning outcomes. This was usually not a problem when the objectives were related to physical science or earth science concepts, but when teacher candidates tried to list inquiry oriented objectives, the results were typically like the following:
· The student will make two different parachutes.
· The student will observe what happens to various solids when they are added to water.
·
The student will make a hypothesis of why some
objects sink and others float.
There was rarely an indication of a learning target such as learning to state a testable hypothesis.
Finally, there were some very brief lesson plans. One procedure consisted of three lines: (1) Challenge the student to figure out a way to layer colored water, (2) Allow time for the student to work, and (3) Ask the student what she discovered. This particular teacher candidate remarked in the conclusion of her paper, “I found that I enjoy letting students explore on their own.” Others had more difficulty letting their students work on their own. One stated, “I helped [the student] design a way to test the items. After watching the video, I wished that I had let her decide how to test the objects instead of showing her a way…. I tend to want to tell them the answer.”
Interpretations
and Conclusions
Many teacher candidates
found it difficult to determine their teacher role in an open inquiry lesson.
Their conception of being a teacher may be too tied to the teacher as expert to
be able to plan a lesson in which the expert had no clear place. For some it
was impossible to plan an inquiry
lesson, because planning was the province of their students, thus a few lessons
were very short. More often the student generated questions and processes that
would have been part of an open inquiry were eliminated or at least sidelined
in favor of teacher-structured inquiries. It was as if relinquishing the
structure to the student would have meant abdicating the role of teacher.
The
results also suggest that there are problematic ideas within inquiry science.
For example, it was difficult for candidates to identify questions that are
appropriate for inquiry. Candidates often seemed to expect questions more
sophisticated than, “What would happen if we put all these liquids in the
freezer?” so they missed appropriate, investigatable
questions. However, part of the difficulty may be that deliberately formulating such questions is beyond the developmental
level of many young children. Even though young children seem to be a
never-ending source of questions, they may not be able to deliberately
formulate an investigatable question on a given
topic. Perhaps the unidentified teacher role in inquiry, especially in open
inquiry, is to find ways of scaffolding children’s ability to question and find
answers.
Other
problematic ideas about inquiry science pertain to the objectives of open
inquiry. Although the candidates had
done open inquiries in class, and they had used a set rubric to assess inquiry
reports (Wichita Public Schools, 2004), they rarely related these experiences
to the lessons done with children. The rubrics used in class made clear
distinctions between levels of performance in such areas as formulating
questions and recording observations, but teacher candidates did not seem to
interpret this as something that children would have to learn. Instead, they
saw doing open inquiry as the
objective. The lesson was a success if an investigation was completed, and they
often had great difficulty stating what the child learned.
What
escaped almost all of the candidates was that inquiry skills can and should be
taught. They did not think of targeting science process skills such as observation
or controlling variables. Neither did they think of targeting concepts related
to inquiry such as relating conclusions back to the investigation question or
accepting variability and error as part of doing science.
The conclusion is that the reasons for doing open inquiry need to be clarified. This is especially true for future teachers, but perhaps it is true for many of us as science educators. Perhaps we take it too easily on faith that doing open inquiry is positive and productive for children. Our standards do little more than state that children should have opportunities to do open inquiry. Yes, children should have the opportunity to ask and answer their own questions, to act as scientists and do authentic science at their own level, but the teacher still has an important role in fostering skills and helping children find meaning in what they are doing.
As science educators, an examination of teacher candidate beliefs about teaching inquiry might help us find ways to strengthen the ability of new teachers to offer meaningful inquiry experiences to their students. In an atmosphere of accountability, they should be able to justify the inclusion of open inquiry in their teaching.
References
Colburn,
A. (2003). The lingo of learning: 88 terms
every science teacher should know.
Crespo, S.
(2003). Learning to pose
mathematical problems: exploring changes in preservice
teachers' practices. Educational Studies
in Mathematics, 52(3) 243-70.
Doyle, C., & Alagic, M. (2004).
Pre-service elementary teachers’ use of FOSS kits in action research. Paper
presented at the AETS Annual Meeting,
Doyle, C., & Alagic, M. (2005).
The many dimensions of volume. Paper presented at the
AETS Annual Meeting, Colorado Springs, CO.
National Research Council (1996). National
Science Education Standards.
National Research Council (2000). How people learn:
Brain, mind, experience, and school: Expanded edition.
National Research Council (1996). National
Science Education Standards.
Wichita Public Schools (2004). Science
performance rubric. http://www.usd259.com/curriculum/science/Science%20Perf.%20Demos/3rd%20Grade/3%20Rubric.pdf.
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