About Inquiry
There are four levels of inquiry.
Right now I'm not really pursuing open inquiry. For one thing, the risk-management aspect terrifies me a little in the chemistry setting. I am also keen to keep our investigations centered on key concepts in our curriculum. I don't have a whole lot of free time in my syllabus, and open inquiry takes a serious time commitment. For better or for worse, the activities here are mostly of the Guided Inquiry variety. Some activities are more structured because they are trying to scaffold in key skills. Other times I will provide more structure because it's important for students to learn a lab technique (ex: proper titrations). I hope you will find that even the more structured activities use language and strategies that are compatible with / supportive of inquiry. |
Inquiry Crash-Course: Where to Begin?
At their simplest, guided inquiries differ from structured ones in the following ways:
1) Start with a question, not a purpose.
2) Students decide which observations they need to make / data they need to collect to answer the question
(Think, too, about the analysis that will follow!)
3) Students decide what kind of procedure will lead them to these observations / this data
4) Students organize their data collection
5) Students carry out the lab, collect the data, and answer the question.
Sometimes it doesn't make sense for students to be responsible for all of these pieces at once.
Early in the term, steps 2-4 might be done as group brainstorming or as a whole-class discussion. While I aim for more independence as the term progresses, I still want students to talk to one another as they plan. I want them to recognize that we are smarter together!
1) Start with a question, not a purpose.
2) Students decide which observations they need to make / data they need to collect to answer the question
(Think, too, about the analysis that will follow!)
3) Students decide what kind of procedure will lead them to these observations / this data
4) Students organize their data collection
5) Students carry out the lab, collect the data, and answer the question.
Sometimes it doesn't make sense for students to be responsible for all of these pieces at once.
Early in the term, steps 2-4 might be done as group brainstorming or as a whole-class discussion. While I aim for more independence as the term progresses, I still want students to talk to one another as they plan. I want them to recognize that we are smarter together!