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Duschl and Grandy Inquiry reflection  

Duschl and Grandy Inquiry Reflection

Although the reading was dense and hard to follow at times, I did find both the history of inquiry and their conclusions very interesting. I was most struck by the use of the term ‘full inquiry’ when referring to the teaching of Immersion Units rather than single inquiry lessons. I have difficulty wondering which I do. I feel like it is some of both or perhaps I do not fully understand the difference. If you have a series of single inquiry lessons that are getting at essential questions, is that the same as doing a single “hands-on” lab that was based on students observing some phenomena but necessarily following it up with anything of substance?

Reading this certainly reinforced the value of the Data Tools program and the work that we have done in re-thinking our curriculum. I recently completed the first of my Data Tools lessons that used GLOBE data to learn about the earth system. When considering the trends in the role of inquiry over the last fifty years, I sensed an immediate connection with the following:

• 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.

I have felt that especially over the past five years or so, that my students have made such a shift but that I would not necessarily would have been able to articulate this with out reading the article. The Data Tools lesson definitely supports this shift in that we discussed what the data was and how the students at Reynolds Jr. Sr. High most likely got their data but the majority of the time was spent thinking about the data. We use the data in various arrangements to hypothesize, examine, and offer explanations that support the data that we saw.

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Mark, the inquiry question is an interesting one. Whether single or full inquiry, the end result seems to be the same. We are providing an environment for the student to explore the unexplained. Data tools has given us another avenue to fit the intuitive idea and data together to make a meaningful whole. I do not see much of a difference

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edittextuser=652 post_id=1097 initial_post_id=0 thread_id=323

Mark,

I wasn't quite sure what the authors meant by the weeks-long inquiry units. I did skim through more of the paper to see if they got into specifics, but I didn't look very thoroughly and didn't come across anything. I agree that DataTools does exactly what was mentioned in the article: provides large amounts of data and the tools needed to analyze the data, in order for students to practice analyzing and concluding.

It does make sense to shift toward more analysis today because, in many fields of science, technology has taken over a lot of the actual testing leaving the people to do the analysis and conclusion.

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