INQUIRY BASED LEARNING
I think teachers should practice inquiry based learning while
teaching. First determining the age
group is important. You should be carefully observing the learning skills of
the class. Topics should be suitable for the class level. Teachers should
inquire the learning process of the students, determine where the problem is.
Inquiry based teaching requires much more effort from the teacher than other
methods.
Cooperative Learning for efficient guidance for the whole semester: Dividing the classroom into small groups, and giving them assignments that they can work on together, while explaining them the stages and the purpose of the assignment. Students can observe each other while sharing the work and experience the effects of co-working on group dynamics.
Developing Good Question: In Inquiry Based Learning method, teaching them to have different perspective to the questions is important. The way to do this is open-ended questions. Open-Ended questions may be used for every class and is preferable. Student, interpreting the knowledge and commenting on it shows what and how much is being learnt. This is an opportunity for student to research also. Learning by inquiring in co-working and working alone and presenting is essential.
Basic Principle of the Student: If the student has the curiosity for learning and ambitious, inquiring while studying; this is not traditional learning methods and the brain keeps the information for longer periods. Student adopts the Socratic thinking principles.
Methodology: If students like to explore,
experience with their learnings, prefer to share their knowledge with friends, they
prefer inquiry based learning method. Actively in inquiry based learning
method, students continue to explore even experiment after the teacher finishes
the subject in the classroom. They can memorize the reaction of carbonate
mixing with vinegar, but experimenting with it, and experiencing the bubbles
makes the knowledge more active.
Strategy : Student-centered approach
- Engage Strategy : By creating a short activity or discussion environment, the students are provided with an introduction to the new subject to be learned by making use of their previous knowledge.At this stage, questions that will attract the attention of the student are asked.students are provided with different answers and each student's answer should be interesting in other students.
- Explore Strategy : Students learn information by recording data, making observations, and experimenting as a result of group work inside or outside the classroom.It is the stage of generating solutions and overcoming concepts to overcome a problem by putting forward hypotheses.
- Explain Strategy : It is a teaching-oriented collaboration of the 5E model.It is the stage of generalizing the results obtained by using various principles and models through teaching techniques such as discussion expression, indicator, simulation, drama, problem solving, and the students to get acquainted with the solutions and concepts they have discovered.
Elaborate Stratgy : At this stage, students deepen their knowledge and solve the concepts they have learned and the problems they have compared.The solution they find is to apply to new conditions.
Evaluate Strategy : During the evaluation phase, the teacher is to evaluate whether the objectives are achieved and the effects of the methods used on education .After the evaluation, open-ended questions to the students reach a conclusion.
Teaching Technique:
Multiple definitions of Inquiry can be found in literature. Such as, Windschitl (2002)
defines inquiry, a series of
intellectual activities, hypothesis testing, practical problem solution
modeling, Socratic dialogs on examples. NRC (1996) and Crawford (2007) are
defining inquiry outside the line of
scientific process skills, in accordance with the nature of science, not only
asking questions but also processes used by students and scientists to explore
the natural world. When examining the functionality and importance of education
as well as definitions of inquiry,
skills based on inquiry are
internalized and these skills are made a part of the student's knowledge
structure (Thier & Daviss, 2001). Dewey (1938), on the other hand, sees the
function of questioning as a necessary phenomenon for students to develop
critical thinking skills without using remembering skills. For this reason,
students should be given the opportunity to experience their inquiry processes instead of having them
constantly repeated and memorized, so that their knowledge and skills should be
internalized (Zacharia, 2003).
Inquiry
for students in science classes; research is a process in which they develop
questions and bring solutions to the questions using various methods
(observation, document review, open or closed-ended experiments, group
discussions, etc.). In this process, instead of memorizing the facts and
concepts, the realization of learning is at the forefront with the effective
use of both scientific process skills and critical thinking skills (Zacharia,
2003).
Inquiry-based learning, as
Crawford (2007) puts it, is not just a process in which students pose problems
and ask questions about various topics. If it is perceived only in this way, it
can be thought that it is a vicious circle in which students ask unanswered
questions about topics they do not know. According to Casotti, Reiser-Danner
and Knabb (2008), inquiry-based learning
is a combination of four types of activities. In short, these are: (1) Students' organizing their ideas and scientific contents independent of the
teacher, (2) Complementary performance activities in which students actively
participate to test their ideas, (3) Emphasis on the learning of hypothesis
testing and validation methods, (4) Both content and the process is an
important part of learning
“Structured
inquiry” is another phase (Sadeh & Zion, 2009).
The teacher asks the students the answers to the questions they do not know,
and gives them what to do in the process to complete the questioning, and the
student finally finds the answer (Brown & Melear, 2006; Sadeh & Zion,
2009).
"Guided
inquiry" is a process that the teacher gives
the problem to the student but the solution of the problem and the method to be
used for it are student’s responsibility (Windschitl, 2002).
“Open
inquiry” is the highest level inquiry. In this level
of inquiry, the teacher allows
students to create questions and research patterns. The student continues the
whole process on his own (Brown & Melear, 2006; Sadeh & Zion, 2009;
Windschitl, 2002). In Table 1, the classification and explanations made by Bell,
Smetana and Binns (2005) summarize the levels of questioning. According to this
table, the information given to students by different levels of inquiry varies.
For example, in the “Guided Inquiry”
approach, students are given a problem / research question and the research
process and solution are expected to be carried out by them. The development of
research skills is aimed by using open
inquiry method in science classes. These research skills include; problem
solving, planning and applying research, looking for patterns in data sets,
observing and inferencing, asking questions, researching and testing ideas.
These research and inquiry skills are in line with scientific process skills in
science education literature. According to Tan and Temiz (2003), scientific
process skills are basic skills that facilitate learning in science, gain
research ways and methods, enable students to be active, develop a sense of
responsibility in their own learning and increase the permanence of learning.
These processes are; planning, asking appropriate questions, making observations
and measurements, recording, estimating, interpreting, analyzing, providing
explanations, drawing results and establishing relations (Okey, Wise, &
Burns, 1985)
