TPaCK
Pedagogy
Inquiry-based learning, especially in science, focuses on student-created learning instead of teacher-directed instruction. Teachers are no longer simply concentrating on the regurgitation of material from students. They are now focusing more on how students learn instead of what they learn. This is not saying that what students are learning is not important. It is simply stating that what they learn is only part of the learning process. In order for students to retain more information for a longer period of time, teachers are now focusing on how students learn. If teachers can tap into how students learn, then they can design more interesting projects and tailor assignments to student interests. Inquiry-based learning is a strategy that concentrates on the process instead of a certain set of lessons.
Inquiry-based learning is trying to elevate learning by increasing student participation, accepting that students learn differently, and following a series of steps that lead to understanding. It aims to make the content more meaningful and personal to students. The goal of inquiry based learning is that students will gain relevant knowledge and not just sit idly by collecting impersonal, random facts from a lecture. Inquiry will also reach more students by engaging multiple intelligences. The process of inquiry very closely ties in with Bloom’s Taxonomy, which can lead to more complete comprehension. In order for students to generate questions for inquiry, teachers should start with an actual student question. By starting with a question that interests the student, students will have a more vested interest in the process. It must be an answerable question; belief questions will not work. Students must first identify what they know and what they need to know in order to formulate a question. Once they have a question as a base, then they can begin to discover subquestions of that questions. With all of this information, students can then formulate a hypothesis as to what they think the answer to their question is. With a hypothesis in hand, students can design an experiment in order to test their hypothesis. After conducting the experiment, students can then decide whether or not their hypothesis was correct based on the data and observations collected from the experiment.
In my high school biology classroom, devising questions about the world around them is a struggle for my students. Most are typically of low socioeconomic status, and many come from single-parent homes. Many are just biding their time in high school until they are sixteen and can drop out to find a job and help their family pay the bills. Some just want to finish high school and have no greater aspiration than to pass the class so they can move on to the next. Some of my students do not see the point of questioning life around them. I want to help them change their views and see that they really can do anything they would like if they are willing to work. In order to create a family-like environment, I have set up my classroom so that students have an opportunity to work with one another in groups. They can work with students who have similar interest in topics, so they will have a vested interest in solving the problem they have chosen. In science, especially inquiry-based, students are much more successful when they are trying to solve a question that they have devised. My classroom has moved from being a teacher-directed classroom to a student-created classroom. When the students are in their groups, they divide up the work for their project. One student may be a notetaker for the day, while another may be conducting the experiment. Each student will have an opportunity to be an equal contributor to the group, so the outcome is greatly a team effort. Students learn about collaboration and negotiation skills in order to have a successful project.
Content
The main topic in Biology on which I want to focus is scientific inquiry and experimental design. Because my students are not very cognizant of the world around them, I feel that this is an extremely important topic for them to understand. Much of what is familiar to them has been brought about by scientists wondering about the world and conducting experiments to try to answer the big questions. My students have heard of climate change, for example, and they have seen charts and data, but they have no idea where all the information has been found. I want them to understand how the scientific process works, and how it has contributed to many assumptions that they have. My students know that when they throw a ball into the air it will come down quickly. However, they are not aware of all the time, effort, and calculations it took for find out the acceleration of gravity. They do not understand that a few people can come up with a question, and then find ways to answer it. I want my students to have the power to recognize a problem or make an observation, and then have the ability to devise a way to come up with an answer to the problem or question. My students need to learn to ask probing, or deeper, questions. Most of the time, they are good are asking very superficial questions, but are not good at digging deeper. Scientific inquiry can help students practice asking deep questions and experimental design can help them try to answer those questions.
Technology
Since I am encouraging students to ask questions, I need to give them the tools to try to answer them. In order to the have access to the most current, up-to-date information, they would need access to the Internet. The Internet makes research extremely easy. During this process, my students would learn to find credible sources and separate them from the incredible sources. Google has many applications that can help students find good information. Part of inquiry-based learning is sharing work with others in order to have feedback on a topic. My students would use a blog in order to keep track of their research and present the hypothesis for the problem they have chosen. Blogs allow others to read their work and offer suggestions for improvement in a non-threatening environment. Even though students would work in groups, blogs will create a personal space for each student to record the process of the inquiry-based project. Since students would be conducting experiments, they need to have access to something mobile and compact that would travel easily. An iPad would allow students to have access to research, as well as keep track of different parts of an experiment. It is also compact enough to be taken into the field to collect data. The iPad has many applications that could be used in my classroom. “Paper” is an excellent application for recording drawings or observations during various times in an experiment. “Evernote” and “Google Docs” would allow students to share information with one another without the use of memory sticks or hard drives. They could blog directly from an iPad using “Blogger” or “Wordpress.” “Dropbox” is an application where a group could store all records of the inquiry-based problem they are attempting to solve. Keeping meticulous and organized notes are extremely important during an experiment, so I want my students to have easy access to application that could help them. They can create podcasts, using “Cinch” summarizing their daily findings. They can take photos and have visual documentation in “iPhoto”. They can type notes in “Pages.” Their findings could be accessible almost from the moment they are observed for others to read. Using “Skype,” my students could communicate with other students anywhere in the world for help or to show what they have found. There are many applications that could be used to help students track and monitor progress as they try to solve their inquiry-based problem.
Inquiry-based learning, especially in science, focuses on student-created learning instead of teacher-directed instruction. Teachers are no longer simply concentrating on the regurgitation of material from students. They are now focusing more on how students learn instead of what they learn. This is not saying that what students are learning is not important. It is simply stating that what they learn is only part of the learning process. In order for students to retain more information for a longer period of time, teachers are now focusing on how students learn. If teachers can tap into how students learn, then they can design more interesting projects and tailor assignments to student interests. Inquiry-based learning is a strategy that concentrates on the process instead of a certain set of lessons.
Inquiry-based learning is trying to elevate learning by increasing student participation, accepting that students learn differently, and following a series of steps that lead to understanding. It aims to make the content more meaningful and personal to students. The goal of inquiry based learning is that students will gain relevant knowledge and not just sit idly by collecting impersonal, random facts from a lecture. Inquiry will also reach more students by engaging multiple intelligences. The process of inquiry very closely ties in with Bloom’s Taxonomy, which can lead to more complete comprehension. In order for students to generate questions for inquiry, teachers should start with an actual student question. By starting with a question that interests the student, students will have a more vested interest in the process. It must be an answerable question; belief questions will not work. Students must first identify what they know and what they need to know in order to formulate a question. Once they have a question as a base, then they can begin to discover subquestions of that questions. With all of this information, students can then formulate a hypothesis as to what they think the answer to their question is. With a hypothesis in hand, students can design an experiment in order to test their hypothesis. After conducting the experiment, students can then decide whether or not their hypothesis was correct based on the data and observations collected from the experiment.
In my high school biology classroom, devising questions about the world around them is a struggle for my students. Most are typically of low socioeconomic status, and many come from single-parent homes. Many are just biding their time in high school until they are sixteen and can drop out to find a job and help their family pay the bills. Some just want to finish high school and have no greater aspiration than to pass the class so they can move on to the next. Some of my students do not see the point of questioning life around them. I want to help them change their views and see that they really can do anything they would like if they are willing to work. In order to create a family-like environment, I have set up my classroom so that students have an opportunity to work with one another in groups. They can work with students who have similar interest in topics, so they will have a vested interest in solving the problem they have chosen. In science, especially inquiry-based, students are much more successful when they are trying to solve a question that they have devised. My classroom has moved from being a teacher-directed classroom to a student-created classroom. When the students are in their groups, they divide up the work for their project. One student may be a notetaker for the day, while another may be conducting the experiment. Each student will have an opportunity to be an equal contributor to the group, so the outcome is greatly a team effort. Students learn about collaboration and negotiation skills in order to have a successful project.
Content
The main topic in Biology on which I want to focus is scientific inquiry and experimental design. Because my students are not very cognizant of the world around them, I feel that this is an extremely important topic for them to understand. Much of what is familiar to them has been brought about by scientists wondering about the world and conducting experiments to try to answer the big questions. My students have heard of climate change, for example, and they have seen charts and data, but they have no idea where all the information has been found. I want them to understand how the scientific process works, and how it has contributed to many assumptions that they have. My students know that when they throw a ball into the air it will come down quickly. However, they are not aware of all the time, effort, and calculations it took for find out the acceleration of gravity. They do not understand that a few people can come up with a question, and then find ways to answer it. I want my students to have the power to recognize a problem or make an observation, and then have the ability to devise a way to come up with an answer to the problem or question. My students need to learn to ask probing, or deeper, questions. Most of the time, they are good are asking very superficial questions, but are not good at digging deeper. Scientific inquiry can help students practice asking deep questions and experimental design can help them try to answer those questions.
Technology
Since I am encouraging students to ask questions, I need to give them the tools to try to answer them. In order to the have access to the most current, up-to-date information, they would need access to the Internet. The Internet makes research extremely easy. During this process, my students would learn to find credible sources and separate them from the incredible sources. Google has many applications that can help students find good information. Part of inquiry-based learning is sharing work with others in order to have feedback on a topic. My students would use a blog in order to keep track of their research and present the hypothesis for the problem they have chosen. Blogs allow others to read their work and offer suggestions for improvement in a non-threatening environment. Even though students would work in groups, blogs will create a personal space for each student to record the process of the inquiry-based project. Since students would be conducting experiments, they need to have access to something mobile and compact that would travel easily. An iPad would allow students to have access to research, as well as keep track of different parts of an experiment. It is also compact enough to be taken into the field to collect data. The iPad has many applications that could be used in my classroom. “Paper” is an excellent application for recording drawings or observations during various times in an experiment. “Evernote” and “Google Docs” would allow students to share information with one another without the use of memory sticks or hard drives. They could blog directly from an iPad using “Blogger” or “Wordpress.” “Dropbox” is an application where a group could store all records of the inquiry-based problem they are attempting to solve. Keeping meticulous and organized notes are extremely important during an experiment, so I want my students to have easy access to application that could help them. They can create podcasts, using “Cinch” summarizing their daily findings. They can take photos and have visual documentation in “iPhoto”. They can type notes in “Pages.” Their findings could be accessible almost from the moment they are observed for others to read. Using “Skype,” my students could communicate with other students anywhere in the world for help or to show what they have found. There are many applications that could be used to help students track and monitor progress as they try to solve their inquiry-based problem.