Inquiry and Data
Introduction
The focus of this week's online event is Inquiry and Data. In response to the feedback we received from you, the event will run for ten days, starting on Thursday, November 9 and ending on Sunday, November 19. We will ask you to reflect on your current ideas about inquiry, read about inquiry, and think about the Data Tools investigations you are implementing in light of your reading and reflections. We will also ask that you identify an interesting dataset and come up with at least one interesting question that you might investigate with the data. This could be your head start for a second DataTools classroom activity.
Reflecting on Inquiry
Before you begin your reading, we'd like you to reflect on your current thoughts about inquiry. Please take a few moments to write (or type) your current ideas about scientific inquiry. Feel free to draw on something that you have already read and that you liked.
What does inquiry mean to you? Briefly define it. What does it look like in your classroom? How do you facilitate inquiry experiences for students?
Please save your reflection for comparison with your ideas later.
Reading About Inquiry
We have one key reading and one optional reading for you this week. Both readings can be accessed from the Inquiry Resources portion of the Investigation Resources section of the Web site.
- Reconsidering the Character and Role of Inquiry in School Science: Framing the Debate
Read pages 1 to 9.
- Inquiry in Science and in Classrooms
Optional reading. Skim or read as needed.
Ideas About Inquiry
Duschl and Grandy write, "New technologies and learning theories also have effected how we monitor, diagnose and nurture learning. Scientific databases like Geographical Information Systems (GIS) make it possible to engage in rich scientific inquiry without engaging in hands-on science involving the collection of data. Instead, the data are provided and the inquiry begins with the selection of information for analysis. This is one example of how science education has shifted from management of materials for collecting data to management of information for scrutinizing databases. Such a shift has implications regarding the manner in which interactions with phenomenon are designed and included in science lessons for all grade levels. Information in the guise of data, evidence, models and explanations represents, in an important sense, the new materials for school classrooms and laboratories."
This quote lies at the heart of the DataTools project.
Duschl and Grandy also write that, "The goal (of inquiry in school science) is to assist learners with both the construction and the evaluation of knowledge claims. Thus, by design, students are given extended opportunities to explore the relationships between evidence and explanation. To this end, inquiries are situated into longer thematic instructional sequences, where the theme is defined not by the conceptual structures of scientific content alone. Rather, the sequence of inquiries is designed to support acquisition and evaluation of evidence, as well as language and reasoning skills that promote progress toward a meaningful inquiry goal; e.g., the design, problem or project."
1. Reflect on Duschl and Grandy's notion of inquiry in relation to your personal experiences both as a student and as a teacher.
Duschl and Grandy summarize the trends of the role of inquiry in science education over the last 50 years, "Looking back there are several trends in science education that have altered our images of the role of the inquiry in science education:
- From a goal of providing science education for scientists, to providing science education for all.
- From an image of science education as what we know, to science education as teaching science as a way of knowing.
- From an image of science education that emphasizes content and process goals to science education that stresses goals examining the relation between evidence and explanations.
- From an emphasis on individual science lessons that demonstrate concepts, to science lesson sequences that promote reasoning with and about concepts.
- From the study of science topics that examine current scientific thinking without regard for social context, to the study of science topics in social contexts.
- From a view of science that emphasizes observation and experimentation, to a view that stresses theory and model building and revision.
- From a view of scientific evidence principally derived from sense- perception (either direct or augmented) to a view that evidence is obtained from theory-driven observations."
2. Reflect on any one of the above trends in relation to your classroom teaching and the DataTools investigations that you are implementing (or will be implementing shortly.)
Sharing Your Thoughts About Inquiry
Make a post to the discussion area that includes your responses to 1 and 2. Post your thoughts by Sunday, November 12. Over the next week (and by Sunday, November 19), engage in a discussion around your thoughts by responding to the ideas of at least two of your colleagues.
Your posts to each other might include a question or further discussion of a topic brought up by a colleague or a request for clarification. The goal is to contribute ideas that will further the conversation.
Link to the Inquiry Discussion
(For this event, we will not have separate discussion groups. All of us will be contributing to one big discussion.)
Reconsidering Your Ideas About Inquiry
Return to your thoughts you had about scientific inquiry before you began the reading. Reconsider your ideas. How has your thinking changed? Please make another posting (by Sunday, November 19) that shares both your initial ideas and the new thoughts you have had about inquiry from this reading and from the discussion you had with your colleagues.
Link to the Inquiry Discussion
Inquiring with Data/ A Dataset Plus A Question
Duschl and Grandy write about the importance of "extended opportunities to explore the relationship between evidence and explanation". In the DataTools project, we are asking you to carry out three investigations before the end of March. Each time students inquire with data, it provides the opportunity for them to reason with, make sense of, and build explanations from the data. A long-term goal of this project is that you regularly consider the opportunities for using data in your teaching.
One strategy for promoting inquiry is to couple an interesting dataset with an interesting question. During this online event, we'd like for you to continue exploring datasets.
We ask that you identify a dataset and come up with at least one interesting question that you might investigate with the data. Post the URL to the dataset along with the question by Sunday, November 19. This search for a dataset can help you as you think ahead to the second activity you'll implement during our DataTools year.
To assist you in your search for a dataset, here are a couple of suggestions:
- Browse through the EET chapters. Maybe there is one you'd like to modify for use in your classroom.
- Identify data you might want your students to collect themselves.
- Check the USGS "EarthShot" collection of paired images.
- Check other datasets from USGS, NOAA, or EOS-Webster.
- Browse the datasets posted by your peers at our October meeting.
Link to the Dataset plus Question discussion.
(Once again, we will not have separate discussion groups, but will just have one area in which everyone contributes.)