The most visual aspect of inquiry science- is students doing science. OR, students researching and applying their knowledge in creative ways. Inquiry requires teachers to be able to excite the students' interest in a topic and then provide them with opportunities to undertake the investigation either by themselves or preferably in collaboration with others. This curiosity and motivation can be integrated into all subject areas, not just science.
In my class, CER, PBL, and ADI have worked well with all my students. All three are inquiry based, collaborative strategies to get students familiar with evidence based argumentation. Each take a different duration of time but all three get students used to looking at data and forming opinions based on interpretation of data either collected or given to them.
All three strategies are ideal for my heterogeneous classes, they are great strategies, to organize students with mixed abilities, so collaboratively they can solve problems successfully.
CER, ADI and PBL lend themselves to an interdisciplinary orientation, since answering a problem frequently requires information from several academic areas. By allowing my students to direct their own activities and by giving my students greater responsibilities, I show them how to challenge themselves and learn on their own. That is the basis for my student-driven, student-centered classroom.
CER- Claim, Evidence, Reasoning
CER are quick warm-ups or ticket-out-the door activities. They generally take a 2-5 minutes to complete. I use these a lot for this purpose.
For example- I put up a picture of a food chain with a statement as follows: students then have to follow the steps above to complete the CER.
ADI-Argument-Driven Inquiry
ADI are generally completed within a class period. However, I have had the debate portion, often the following day, to provide enough time to peruse the graphs and charts and discuss as a team. Where CER are quick 2-5 minute activities. ADI take a more time and the information is more complex and detailed. A CER will generally have one photo or diagram whereas the ADI will have 6-8 depending on the complexity of the question.
Student Task :
In this activity, you will utilize actual data sets collected from maps of the United States to determine ecosystem impact by tornadoes in the US. Data sets were collected by amateur storm chasers and USTornadoes.com. More information can be found at http://www.ustornadoes.com/about/
Guiding Question: Tornadoes will have the greatest impact on which ecosystem?
Getting Started: To answer the guiding question, you will need to examine the data set of tornado occurrences to explore the relationship between tornado incidents and ecosystem location.
To determine how you will analyze your data, think about the following questions:
What data is relevant?
What type of calculations will you need to make?
How will you organize and represent your data?
What type of graph could you create to help make sense of your data?
To share your information you will create a white board as follows:
To share your argument with others, we will be using a round-robin format. This means that one member of your group will stay at your lab station to share your group’s argument while the other members of your group go to the other lab stations one at a time to listen to and critique the arguments developed by your classmates.
Once the argumentation session is complete, you will have a chance to meet with your group and revise your original argument. Your group might need to gather more data or design a way to test one or more alternative claims as part of this process. Remember, your goal at this stage of the investigation is to develop the most valid or acceptable answer to the research question!
Finally each group will argue- using data collected- their answer. You must use data to defend your answer.
Problem-Based Learning
CER are quick, ADI class periods, while PBL generally progress over a week-six weeks depending on the problem. Problem-based learning or Project-Based learning must follow the four basic principles of PBL
1. Students work with their peers to solve problems.
2. Students research and gather information on their topic.
3. Students use technology with purpose, to design and create a culminating project.
4. Students need to see themselves as the ultimate resource. (independence)
This year, my students worked together for several PBL assessments, but this was my favorite. They were given five class periods to research, write their speech and create their presentation. Each group presented their findings to the class in a 7-10 minute presentation. Using primary sources, current events and science resources, they collaboratively solved the problem- they designed a persuasive presentation to convince a political leader (me) that environmental change is necessary.
Title: Human Impact on the Environment
Challenge (Driving Question):
How can political leaders be persuaded to implement changes in policy regarding environmental damage?
Summary: Students will research how humans are negatively impacting various ecosystems. They will write a persuasive speech and video presentation including the effects of human actions and ways to repair or end the damage.
Students will: Receive a randomly assigned ecosystem, create questions, research, revise questions (add or revise), synthesize findings, write persuasive essay utilizing documentation and quotes, create plausible solution to ecosystem rehabilitation, and present findings in a speech/video to classmates and ultimately, politicians (calling for reform)
Student-centered teachers carefully guide students as they begin to explore or investigate their topic, being careful not to dominate the conversation. They allow the conversation to be led by students and for the discussion, to take twists and turns, based on the evidence and interest of the students. They give students plenty of time to develop responses or think about the issue more carefully, giving students the time to reflect and think more carefully about the issue. These three inquiry strategies, CER, ADI, and PBL are three great ways to make sure that students are in charge of their own learning.
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