rediscovering the nature of inquiry in our classrooms
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Science
Brave Old World - Rediscovering the
Nature of Inquiry in Our Classrooms
Chris Thompson
OLT Extension Grant, 2014: Taking Inquiry-
Oriented Learning to the Teaching Coalface
with Gerry Rayner, Theo Hughes & Les Kirkup.
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Our Journey – The IDEA Experiments
2012
Mood For Change
What We Did & How We Did It
Getting People On Board
2013
Student Perceptions
The IDEAs are Spreading
2014
OLT Extension Grant
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Mood For Change
Why change anything?
The LTAS project
Changes in Secondary
Education
(National Curriculum)
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Mood For Change
TLOs have been drafted for most disciplines.
Take these chemistry TLOs for example:
Do these things REALLY take place in a teaching lab??
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Answer
The IDEA Experiments
Inquiry Design
Explore
?
The IDEA Experiments
Here’s what our Monash
Science Teaching Associates
think as a group (n ~ 48)
Perceptions of Inquiry Evaluation
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Does it work?
We definitely think so!
Is it easy to set up?
Design
Demonstrators
Are my colleagues on board?
Yes, and the IDEAS are
spreading.
Higher year levels
Beyond our Faculty
The IDEA Experiments
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“Did you enjoy this practical?”
• 72 % - yes, 18 % - no
Some of the reasoning from students who did not enjoy the
experiment is exemplified by the following comments:
“I did not like the lack of guidance.”
“There was not enough guidance - didn't know what I was
trying to accomplish at the end.”
“Was pretty lost at first.”
“It was a bit harder and there wasn't as much guidance.”
“Too open ended not much guidance.”
Student Perspectives
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“What did you think was the main lesson to be learnt from
this practical?”:
"How to work as a scientist without any knowledge of (a)
substance and determine it through experimentation"
"Experimenters face a great deal of challenges when they
are trying to find out something unknown. Even when they
take all necessary precautions, they still may be faced with
errors."
"The issues and situations a chemist could experience in
the field."
Student Perspectives
Controlling the chaos
Using ‘inquiry’ in the classroom does not necessarily mean
completely open-ended activities.
Herron’s Hierachy of Inquiry (1971!)
An OLT Extension Grant!
Aim: Maintain the momentum of Les’s IOL Fellowship by
generating the changes required for genuine inquiry -
from design to the teaching coalface.
Deliverables
1. IOL workshops – Roadtrip!
La Trobe, Fed Uni, UTas, Deakin
Target audience TAs /
demonstrators
2. An IOL forum
3. An IOL Best Practice booklet
1. IOL Workshops
The ACME Paper Towel Evaluation
The Inquiry / Problem / Question
Split into Groups and Brainstorm for 5
minutes
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1. IOL Workshops
The ACME Paper Towel Evaluation
How can this approach be applied to our laboratories?
What is holding IOL back in our classrooms?
How much IOL is appropriate?
What role for the recipe?
1. IOL Workshops
Great discussions around challenges/difficulties/concerns.
Already large, and ever growing cohorts
Cost
Time
Assessment
Future-shock! Abbott-Pyne Era?
Solutions!
1. IOL Workshops
But best of all, we witnessed the growth of a community of
practice …
2. IOL Forum
Keynote Presentation from OLT Fellow Prof Les Kirkup
A summary of our experiences via the IOL workshops
Six vignettes – 20 minute presentations showcasing what
people are doing in their classrooms
~100 delegates from 15 different institutions
Two vignettes from secondary teachers … we need to get
moving!
3. IOL Good Practice Booklet
Designed to be a resourse for
people wanting to jump in the
deep end.
Transform stale old recipe pracs
into active-learning classes.
Trade secrets
Exemplars from practictioners
Honest, reflective accounts of
how these developments
actually went.
Research?
Perceptions of inquiry.
Student vs demonstrators vs academic staff – intriguing!
What’s missing?
Is IOL really effective in enhancing students’ scientific
literacy?
Do students really gain the higher order skills through
embedding and scaffolding IOL in science degrees?
How to measure this?
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