Inquiry: Learning from the Past with an Eye on the Future

by

Ronald J.  Bonnstetter
University of Nebraska, Lincoln

    Social anthropologists propose that systemic cultural change takes an average of 76 years to gain a wide spread foot hold. With regard to current educational reform, this suggests that we are at best midway into the most recent effort. But to make this current endeavor stick, while so many others have failed, will take more than biding our time and taking a "be patient attitude".

    Over the past 20 years we have seen numerous reform projects come and go. I would like to share my perception of at least part of the reason for these failures and then apply these insights to our most recent reform effort, the implementation of National Standards.

Learning from the Past

    As I reflect on past projects, I have observed at least three major phases that many teachers go through, or far too often, fail to go through. Phase I might be described by Harry Wong as "Doing what you have been doing, and getting what you have been getting". In other words, Phase I is simply the pre-reform effort phase. Of course, we as educators hope to move teachers to a new vision and this can result in Phase II.

    In Phase II, teachers are presented with a new teaching strategy, usually in the context of an afternoon or one day workshop. So armed with this new skill, but little else, they venture back to their classroom to try implementation or worse, write off the whole experience and tell colleagues seated near them that they already do that. What is immediately noticeable for those who at least think about possible implementation, is how these teachers internalize this new strategy and attempt to move it into practice. Their efforts many times result in an "all or none" approach. Take cooperative learning as an example. Phase I teachers employ traditional classroom presentations and may group for laboratories, but only as a convenience or due to equipment limitations. But Phase II teaching can be just as deadly. These teachers attempt to imbed their new learning into everything they do. So now we see cooperative groups for everything from labs to homework and guess what, it does not work. Phase II teachers quickly reach the conclusion that "this stuff is just another short term educational trend". And of course, based on their "N of 1" data, they quickly revert back to Phase I teaching. Oh yes, I might add that they also become very vocal spokespersons against this new reform and have personal experience to support those views.

    The missing link in the scenario described above requires staying with a reform effort long enough to reach Phase III. Phase III is where teachers reflect on

1. what they were doing that worked, and

2. how they might integrate these new ideas into their pre-workshop repertoire of teaching tools.

    The sad fact is that we far too often fail to invest either the time or the necessary resources to reach and build Phase III teachers. My personal experience suggests that on average it takes anywhere from three to five years for wide spread single component teacher behavior changes to be firmly implemented among a building faculty and from three to eight years with the same general educational reform agenda to accomplish anything close to systemic change.

    Please think about the implications of these statements and their interface with current inservice practice. For example National Science Foundation funding rarely views a project as valuable enough to fund beyond the fourth year and district agendas change with each new administrator or annual plan.

    So it is not enough to be on the right track and be presenting our teachers with solid research based practice. We must be prepared to invest the time and develop better inservice strategies to help teachers transition from Phase II skill oriented practitioners to full fledged Phase III teachers who have not only gained the skill but have reflected upon their own practice long enough to develop true integration.

Inquiry-based teaching: A case in point

    Inquiry learning and inquiry oriented teaching are not new science education concepts. What is new is the prominence inquiry has within the National Science Education Standards.

Teaching Standard A:

Teachers of science plan an inquiry-based science program for their students. In doing this, teachers

• Develop a framework of yearlong and short-term goals for students.
• Select science content and adapt and design curricula to meet the interests, knowledge, understanding, abilities, and experiences of students.
• Select teaching and assessment strategies that support the development of student understanding and nurture a community of science learners.
• Work together as colleagues within and across disciplines and grade levels.

    For those of you with T1 connections, you might enjoy viewing this one minute science activity and ask yourself, is this an inquiry lesson? Think about your answer as we move to the next discussion.

Does your Chewing Gum Loose it's Favor on the Bedpost Over Night (or simply after a few minutes of heavy chewing?)

    For several years now I have worked with a wonderful group of 7th through 12th grade science teachers in Alaska. This project has basically maintained the same reform focus for the past eight years. As a consequence we are seeing the kind of Phase III results previously discussed. But over the last few years we had tried to create a vision and implement wider use of inquiry-based teaching and student learning. For the most part these early efforts failed. Upon reflection, reasons include: presenting the theory and inquiry concept without a clear image of that theory in practice and failing to stick with inquiry as a major focus over time. But the real key to movement came with our efforts to examine the problem using a Phase III approach. The question became: What is needed to help teachers see more clearly what they are presently doing that is working and how this new national agenda fits in? Like most workshops that result in success, it was not so much what was planned as what the teachers did.

    A special three hour session was set aside to revisit this thing called inquiry. Our lesson plan called for using part of a North West Regional Laboratory film which breaks inquiry into different levels and then work in groups to examine examples of present practice and ways to further develop greater inquiry into current practice.

    One teacher, Mark Lyke, from Polaris K-12 School in Anchorage, took the content from that short film and developed a model for the group to explore. Since that day, I have used his original diagram and asked other teacher groups to review and revise this visual representation of the inquiry teaching and learning. I would like to share this evolving model in hopes that you might also help teachers see the connections to their present practice and in doing so, establish personal goals to move our nations science teachers on, what you will soon see as an inquiry teaching continuum.

Inquiry as an Evolutionary Process

Traditional Hands-on Science Experiences

    We are all familiar with these "cookbook" experiences. The Teacher directs the decision making from topic to conclusion. We also know that for some teachers this step would be a major improvement over their 45 minute daily lecture. So this is not bad science, it simply is not inquiry science.

Structured Science Experiences

    During a structured laboratory experience, students are required to reach their own conclusions based on supportive evidence. On the inquiry continuum providing a structured experience is a major step for both the teacher and their students. I mention students, because we must not forget that our students must go through the same basic developmental process as teachers.

Guided Inquiry

    Guided inquiry still has the teacher selecting the topic, the question, and providing the material, but students are required to design the investigation, analyze the results, and reach supportable conclusions. A recent teacher workshop suggested that both the teacher and the student be listed under the procedures and design section. They pointed out that many times we must fluctuate between teacher and student directed at these interface components.

Student Directed Inquiry

    At this point the student is responsible for everything beyond the general topic and maybe a little guidance with question development. I believe this is in fact the level of inquiry being suggested by the National Standards.

Student Research

    This is the inquiry ultimate goal. At this point the student simply needs support and guidance from the teacher. I do not believe that this is a goal to be met by all or even most of our students, but our teachers must understand how to help students who have both the interest, drive and ability to pursue true research. In other words, we must introduce our pre-service teacher to doing real research, if we ever hope to have them develop programs for their own students.

Inquiry Evolution: a Means to an End

Teacher Controlled ---------------------------------------------------------------------------> Student Controlled

Exogenous >__________________> Cognitive Development >__________________> Endogenous

Focus on Teaching _____________________>______________________________> Focus on Learning

This process of moving from traditional to at least guided inquiry creates several very exciting end results. It alters the role of the teacher, the intellectual development of the students and even the classroom learning climate. The graph above shows how we can use inquiry to move toward more student centered classrooms and create a classroom where the focus is clearly on learning and not on the teacher teaching.

The cognitive growth may need a brief clarification. An exogenous cognitive change is externally driven, in this case by the teacher, and is measured by how well a student can reproduce what they have been told. An endogenous change, on the other hand, results in the internal reconstruction of new information and is measured by creativity and ones problem solving ability in new situations. All of these changes clearly align with many other aspects of our current educational reform efforts.

Conclusion

So replay the bubble gum video and determine at what level of inquiry this present lab might fall and more importantly, how would a teacher alter this one lab to make it "Guided" or even "Student Directed". Remember, you could be the teacher who lights the flame for an original research project.

As classroom teachers or teacher educators, we must take the time to reflect on our past efforts and make needed mid-course corrections. Looking for patterns within our reform projects and helping teachers see reform as an evolutionary process and not an either/or response, will help all of us grow as professionals and ultimately improve the education of our children.

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