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They are student guided learning, not inquiry. The two are so closely related sometimes they overlap, but for the most part there is almost no guidance whatsoever in inquired learning at its purest state, to include things like charts and even the final product. Physics and, to a lesser extent, Chemistry are where this style of teaching first emerged, at least as far as science. Safety considerations, not surprisingly, often prevent pure inquiry learning in Chemistry. Most teachers who say they are doing inquiry learning are doing it on a continuum - to include me.
Montessori preschools is where I have seen the purest forms of inquiry learning, appropriately so in my opinion.
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I've seen lots of articles making a case for it but I'm not seeing research supporting it works. I'm not seeing it being effective in my classroom. I'm told that the problem is me. Right now I'm just frustrated. I can't teach the way I want to and what I'm doing isn't working.
Based on what I know about you from reading your posts through the years it does not fit in with your personality or likely teaching style. You have to be able to let go of control for it to work the way it's supposed to and that just isn't in your DNA. But here's the thing, in my opinion there are most likely other teaching methods where you excel more than teachers who love this style of teaching. I really wish education would do a better job of trying to match student learning styles with the teaching styles of the various teachers in a content area. Everyone would benefit. Trust me, there are kids that the free style/perceived chaos of inquiry science will shut down.
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When I post in bold red that is moderator action and, per the TOS, can only be discussed through Direct Message.
They are student guided learning, not inquiry. The two are so closely related sometimes they overlap, but for the most part there is almost no guidance whatsoever in inquired learning at its purest state, to include things like charts and even the final product. Physics and, to a lesser extent, Chemistry are where this style of teaching first emerged, at least as far as science. Safety considerations, not surprisingly, often prevent pure inquiry learning in Chemistry. Most teachers who say they are doing inquiry learning are doing it on a continuum - to include me.
Montessori preschools is where I have seen the purest forms of inquiry learning, appropriately so in my opinion.
Yeah, this approach is very much a part of early childhood education. Education is always full of extremes and right now, this approach is being used in early ed to the exclusion of anything else. When you throw out a bunch of different colored paints and through trial and error the lightbulb goes off in a child's head that mixing yellow with red will create orange, it's effective. But different age groups have cognitive limitations and limited experience. There are circumstances where a child will just never think of things on their own without an adult to introduce something new to them. What is wrong with an adult introducing new subject matter to a young child? No one wants a child to be spoon-fed information, but there are limits when education is exclusively self-discovery. I don't know why the education field objects to moderation and an eclectic approach, but they do.
That's my problem with it. It took the brightest minds 100's of years to come up with the theories taught in chemistry and 10th graders are supposed to "discover" them in 9 months???
I actually like the concept for discovering equations like the gas laws because the kids see where the equations come from but not so much for most of chemistry. I like it for physics where you can derive the kinematic equations from graphs too but I find I still have to show my students how the equations are derived. They lack the background knowledge to make the connections themselves. It also takes A LOT of time. A concept I can teach in 15 minutes becomes a 3 day project for the students to discover it and most of them don't. Most of the time their data is so bad they couldn't draw a conclusion from it if they knew how to draw a conclusion from it.
I also struggle with inquiry as a means to an end or as the end to the means. As a chemistry teacher I'm firmly in the latter camp. Inquiry is the goal because chemistry is abstract and you have to know a lot of stuff before you can start putting the stuff together in different ways to come up with new ideas. Only my top kids will get there by the end of the year though. My favorite day of the year is when I pull that seltzer water bottle out of the ice bath and hand it to a hand picked student to open. The look on their face when the contents freeze instantly is priceless. Then I let the class figure it out and they do. They come up with a lot of wrong ideas first but they eventually get to the right combination. That's MY definition of inquiry learning. Building a solid base and THEN using it to figure things out.
I am not liking the current version of inquiry learning. I believe we're on our 4th iteration here. It's come and gone at least three times before. In the 1950's, the 1970's (maybe late 60's), and the 1990's. One thing that bothers me is that it has come and GONE at least three times (there was an attempt to teach it in the 30's as well but it really didn't catch on then). Now inquiry is the education buzz word of the year and EVERYONE is expected to use it even though research does not support it as being better than guided instruction.
Based on what I know about you from reading your posts through the years it does not fit in with your personality or likely teaching style. You have to be able to let go of control for it to work the way it's supposed to and that just isn't in your DNA. But here's the thing, in my opinion there are most likely other teaching methods where you excel more than teachers who love this style of teaching. I really wish education would do a better job of trying to match student learning styles with the teaching styles of the various teachers in a content area. Everyone would benefit. Trust me, there are kids that the free style/perceived chaos of inquiry science will shut down.
I agree with you. This is not in my DNA and it's not in my DNA for good reason. I know where all of this is going and I know it's a LONG journey to get there. I have a very hard time cutting out content I consider crucial to make time for inquiry learning. To me inquiry comes after you've learned enough background material to start putting it together in different ways as in the freezing bottle I spoke of above. It's at the end of the year when my students are putting things together in new ways that I know I've done well. I tell them that I value a well supported wrong answer over a canned response right answer any day of the week and I do. I love it when they're wrong but the logic to get where they went is solid. They're thinking like scientists. To me inquiry is the goal not the learning method. My students are not scientists. They are students. They are limited by their backgrounds. How well inquiry works depends on their backgrounds.
One article I read made a comment that hit home for me. The author said that we honor learning styles and cater to them but we fail to honor a teacher's best teaching style. The author suggested that perhaps the reason inquiry learning at higher levels is on par with guided instruction is that each teacher is attracted to the style that works best for them. I feel like a square peg being forced into a round hole right now and I know that my kids are learning less than they did before. I am not seeing the attraction here.
There are some activities I do like and embrace because sometimes the aha moment of discovery really helps (even if I have to hold them by the hand to get them there) but so much of what I teach is abstract that I think my students get more out of it if I walk them through it.
Interestingly, I do use more inquiry when I teach math. When equations are involved I think it's better that they don't just drop from the ceiling. Poof...here they are. As much as possible I like to show my students where they come from. For example the first year I taught instead of teaching my kids the trig functions I had them make and measure right triangles then calculate the ratios and prove to themselves that as long as the angle doesn't change the ratio doesn't change. I have modified this so that I now give them the right triangles because they're not really good at keeping that right angle but that only took making one set of laminated triangles to be used.
However, most of the time I do default to direct teaching if allowed to. What's killing me is not giving up control. Honestly, I have a lot more free time using inquiry because I have so much less to grade but rather it's seeing my students struggle and not learn. Maybe my peers are right and it's just me but if it is just me am I doing my students any favors by using a method that doesn't work for me or them as a result? Right now I wish we weren't lock stepped. I'd go back to teaching my old way which FTR yielded good results and just take common assessments. We're supposed to do the same activities and assignments so our students can work with their friends in other classes outside of school. Maybe I'll just start sneaking in some guided instruction although I'm told if I do that I'll RUIN everything.
That's my problem with it. It took the brightest minds 100's of years to come up with the theories taught in chemistry and 10th graders are supposed to "discover" them in 9 months???
I actually like the concept for discovering equations like the gas laws because the kids see where the equations come from but not so much for most of chemistry. I like it for physics where you can derive the kinematic equations from graphs too but I find I still have to show my students how the equations are derived. They lack the background knowledge to make the connections themselves. It also takes A LOT of time. A concept I can teach in 15 minutes becomes a 3 day project for the students to discover it and most of them don't. Most of the time their data is so bad they couldn't draw a conclusion from it if they knew how to draw a conclusion from it.
I also struggle with inquiry as a means to an end or as the end to the means. As a chemistry teacher I'm firmly in the latter camp. Inquiry is the goal because chemistry is abstract and you have to know a lot of stuff before you can start putting the stuff together in different ways to come up with new ideas. Only my top kids will get there by the end of the year though. My favorite day of the year is when I pull that seltzer water bottle out of the ice bath and hand it to a hand picked student to open. The look on their face when the contents freeze instantly is priceless. Then I let the class figure it out and they do. They come up with a lot of wrong ideas first but they eventually get to the right combination. That's MY definition of inquiry learning. Building a solid base and THEN using it to figure things out.
I am not liking the current version of inquiry learning. I believe we're on our 4th iteration here. It's come and gone at least three times before. In the 1950's, the 1970's (maybe late 60's), and the 1990's. One thing that bothers me is that it has come and GONE at least three times (there was an attempt to teach it in the 30's as well but it really didn't catch on then). Now inquiry is the education buzz word of the year and EVERYONE is expected to use it even though research does not support it as being better than guided instruction.
I agree with everything you posted. I think that this new, 3rd or 4th wave of "inquiry based learning" pedagogy is something that a science education professor at a university who has never taught K-12 thought would revolutionize education. So, after much data massaging (when, most likely, a comparison in pre to posttest scores between inquiry based vs traditional didn't yield many significant differences), the "no-k12-experience science educator" came to this wild conclusion that kids can learn in less than 9 months what it took others centuries to learn.
I think that a mix is necessary. In physics and chemistry, showing them how to do equations and how to derive equations also helps build their math skills. There's nothing wrong with doing a bit of math practicing - especially when students (including honors) may be lacking in this area.
I haven't had much luck with it on it's own, either... only when I mixed it up with traditional teaching. There were times when they were able to figure things out for themselves and other times when they really appreciated and benefited from a review of math and equations.
It really is an "education buzz word" and I wonder what they'll come up with next.
Does anyone who teaches chemistry or physics on here use, or is familiar with the Modeling Instruction method? https://modelinginstruction.org/ I've seen a TED talk on that method by one of its users. It seems to not be 100% inquiry but it involves students doing a lot of diagramming and explaining concepts to each other to come up with the correct predictions.
Does anyone who teaches chemistry or physics on here use, or is familiar with the Modeling Instruction method? https://modelinginstruction.org/ I've seen a TED talk on that method by one of its users. It seems to not be 100% inquiry but it involves students doing a lot of diagramming and explaining concepts to each other to come up with the correct predictions.
That's the one I'm talking about. I spent three weeks being trained in it last summer. It's all the rage but I'm not seeing the results. I'm told that any blending with traditional teaching will ruin the program and that I have to give it time. That it takes a teacher 3 years to get good at it....while I'm thinking what about the students in year one and two when I'm not good at it? Are they somehow disposable?
After using it I like it better for physics but the pace is S-L-O-W. As a result it does not align with the NGSS's which I actually think are decent except for the push for EVERY student to be exposed to engineering. The chemistry standards match quite well with what I teach but I've been accused of teaching too much and not teaching in depth by those who don't realize that teaching chemistry is like strip mining. You are not going deep until you go wide because you have to draw from so many different places to start drawing deeper conclusions (like that freezing seltzer bottle that draws on the pressure dependency of gas solubility and colligative properties. I LOVE watching my students puzzle over what they just saw and then seeing that A-HA moment when it clicks.)
There's a really big push to implement this program in Michigan. They actually paid me $100/day to get trained. I wasn't liking it from the beginning. They kept telling us not to think of OUR students but rather to think about the average student and would not entertain any questions regarding issues we thought we'd encounter in OUR classroom...Um.. I TEACH MY STUDENTS not some fictitious average student.
I don't get it. The research I've done says this type of teaching does not yield better results over guided instruction yet it's all the rage. I do like some of the activities and I would use them even if the program went away but most of it I'd can if for no other reason because it's just too S-L-O-W and a lot of content has to be cut to make it work. In chemistry you have to know a critical mass of knowledge before you can start expanding what you know on your own. Maybe I expect too much out of my students (though they do seem to deliver what I expect) but this program feels like just more dummying down of chemistry. Seriously, my students could draw pictures of the particles in a solid, liquid and a gas in 6th grade. WHY are we doing this in chemistry in 11th grade? Oh wait...that's right...we're talking about the AVERAGE student not MY students...who are the students I teach...
Now I do like some of the activities involving drawing models. The mass and change lab is one I really like. It's a station lab where kids are given materials and they figure out what they can do with them and what changed. For example, take steel wool and burn it and see that the mass went up, take a candle and burn it and see that the mass went down, I had the kids also swell polymer beads in water hoping that they could draw a connection between the gain in mass of the polymer beads and the gain in mass of the burned steel wool, put alkaseltzer in water and you lose mass, mix to liquids get a precipitate and the mass stays the same. (the list goes on...I did 9 different stations) IMO this was a great diving board for a guided discussion (shhh....don't tell my peers) on conservation of mass and what is evidence of a chemical reaction. You can springboard to topics like density and separation techniques too but I really think a lecture is in order after the experiment. I've been lecturing all along in chemistry and my chemistry students are doing just fine. It's my physics and especially my physical science students who aren't. I have not been lecturing there. I THOUGHT the program was a good fit for physical science and I promised to give it a try for physics. (I'm doing it lip service in chemistry because it goes against my ethics to do something I don't believe will work)
I've done an about face on physical science and this program. At first I loved it. I thought it would work. It made sense that it would work. It didn't work. I did some research and found out that this kind of learning doesn't work well with younger learners because they lack both the brain development to do it and the prior knowledge to make the connections. Sometimes what we THINK will work is way out of line with what really works. This is why we need to make our decisions based on data not our personal feelings. I really liked what I saw this summer for lower level classes but it turns out they need more guidance than the upper level classes would when it comes to the program. I don't like it for the upper level classes because you're making lower level connections at the expense of higher level connections that would come later...that is WHEN the connections are actually made. Persisting misconceptions are an issue with inquiry teaching. Sometimes the kids convince themselves something is true and then you have to unconvinced them and convince them of the correct conclusion. I saw this in my physical science students. Even after discussing why something wasn't right I'd have the same kids do it that way on the test.
The training was well worth it but I hated that the presenters presented this as all or nothing when I came looking for ways to improve my teaching not something to replace everything I was doing.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 01-31-2016 at 03:57 PM..
Thanks for your candid opinion and response. I didn't realize that was who you were talking about. I haven't attended a workshop or tried it out yet... I do see your point about teaching your students versus average students.
I guess it doesn't take into account if you are teaching AP physics / chemistry versus regular on track students? I agree that if you feel that this is dumbing down what you're doing, then you probably shouldn't be doing this and continue with the things that align with the expectations of your students and not the "average student".
(Besides, unless the principal or whoever is observing you knows a thing or two about chemistry and physics you can make a lesson look like something it's not just to please him / her..)
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