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Inquiry Unpacked

Inquiry Unpacked. Inquiry Unpacked. What does inquiry look like in the classroom? Why would one do inquiry? What’s so hard about inquiry-oriented teaching?. 1. What Does Inquiry Look Like?. Open Inquiry Hubble, Science Fairs, etc. Structured/Guided Inquiry Let’s Make Craters.

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Inquiry Unpacked

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  1. Inquiry Unpacked

  2. Inquiry Unpacked • What does inquiry look like in the classroom? • Why would one do inquiry? • What’s so hard about inquiry-oriented teaching?

  3. 1. What Does Inquiry Look Like? • Open Inquiry • Hubble, Science Fairs, etc. • Structured/Guided Inquiry • Let’s Make Craters

  4. Let’s Make Some Craters! • Part I: Free Exploration with flour only – use “rocks” less than 2” across and don’t make a mess!! • Part II: Add a thin layer of regolith (dust) to help you see the details. If your moon’s surface gets dirty, switch to adding a thin layer of WHITE regolith over the top. • Part III: Write a procedure to conduct the following: • Experiment #1: Does speed matter (don’t throw it!) • Experiment #2: What happens if you change what lands? • Experiment #3: Does mass matter? (nothing larger than 2” in size) • Experiment #4: Does volume/diameter matter?

  5. 1. What Does Inquiry Look Like? • Open Inquiry • Hubble, Science Fairs, etc. • Structured/Guided Inquiry • Let’s Make Craters • Backwards Faded Scaffolding in Inquiry • Galilean Moons, Galaxy Zoo • Collaborative Inquiry • Tracking Sunspots

  6. Tracking SunspotsLearning about the Sun using real SOHO data Adapted from an activity at: sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/classroom/docs/Spotexerweb.pdf.

  7. If sunspots move, can we tell how fast the sun is spinning? • What kind of data could we collect to answer the question? • How much data should we collect? • What will we do with the data once we have it?

  8. In your classroom, a pair of students working on sunspot C might make a grid that looks like this.

  9. Sample data recorded (numbers are approximate) Group A B C June 22 -60 -- -60 June 23 -45 -58 -45 June 24 -30 -30 -33 June 25 -18 -23 -20 June 26 -12 -12 -13 June 27 8 -7 4 June 28 23 5 17 June 29 33 17 30 June 30 43 23 38 July 01 55 42 53 July 02 65 56 -- July 03 -- 70 --

  10. Analysis: Cleaning Up the Data • Review your data to make sure that the numeric data matches the graphic data • Determine how many degrees of longitude your sunspot moves PER DAY? • Special information: Since Earth is orbiting around the Sun, at about one degree per day, your sunspot is actually moving about one more degree per day that it seems to. Add one degree/day to your calculation. • Determine: How long does it take the sun to rotate USING YOUR DATA?

  11. Thinking About Data Analysis • Were the spots always the same? • Does everyone have the same answer? • What do we do when the answers aren’t the same? • When is it fair to “average” the data? And when is it fair to throw out the outliers?

  12. 1. What Does Inquiry Look Like? • Open Inquiry • Hubble, Science Fairs, etc. • Structured/Guided Inquiry • Let’s Make Craters • Backwards Faded Scaffolding in Inquiry • Galilean Moons, Galaxy Zoo • Collaborative Inquiry • Tracking Sunspots • Jigsawing • Telescope Time Proposals

  13. Jigsawing with Paul Francis

  14. Paul says: • “In these exercises, I divided my class into small teams typically of three students). Each team is then given a briefing paper, describing some facet of a particular astronomical mystery. • The teams have to wander around the classroom, exchanging information with other groups, until they can piece together a complete solution to the astronomical mystery. • They can then present their solution and win a prize. • The exercises have been run successfully in classes as large as 150 students, and as small as 12 students. I see no reason why they should no work equally well in larger classes still. They have been run with students as young as Year 10, and as old as grad students.”

  15. Planet Traxoline • Each member of your group will received data from Planet Traxoline. • This data was retrieved by probes and remote controlled robots. • They took rock samples for chemistry and temperature, and images of topography . • Fossils were also found • You must analyze your own data, share your observations with your group, and report at the ExtraPlanetary Institute meeting. • If you can create a report that makes meaning out of ALL of the data, you win the Spock Prize!

  16. 1. What Does Inquiry Look Like? • Open Inquiry • Hubble, Science Fairs, etc. • Structured/Guided Inquiry • Let’s Make Craters • Backwards Faded Scaffolding in Inquiry • Galilean Moons, Galaxy Zoo • Collaborative Inquiry • Tracking Sunspots • Jigsawing • Telescope Time Proposals • So is everything Inquiry?

  17. Let’s take a look at three Astro classes….. What do you see? Is it inquiry?

  18. Let’s imagine some ASTRO 101 courses What is the teaching model/formula in each class? Compare what happens first, second, etc…

  19. Let’s imagine some ASTRO 101 courses

  20. Let’s imagine some ASTRO 101 courses

  21. Let’s imagine some ASTRO 101 courses

  22. Let’s imagine some ASTRO 101 courses What is the teaching model/formula in each class? Compare what happens first, second, etc…

  23. Discussion Questions • What are the steps in each? • How long does each take? • Which would be the most fun to be a student in? • Which class would you rather teach in?

  24. Discussion Questions continued… • Which is consistent with the nature of science? • Which are teacher-centered, student-centered, hands-on, and inquiry? Inquiry is…. • Engaging with meaningful questions • Using data as evidence • Communicating/critiquing conclusions • Which is teaching for understanding?

  25. 2. Why would one do inquiry?Inquiry and “How People Learn” • What do we know about cognition: the ways that people perceive, remember and process information? • Prior knowledge (Erlwanger, Au, Moll) • Metacognition (Flavell, Brown) • Social construction of knowledge (Vygotsky, Piaget, Bruner) • Meaningful Formative Assessment (Cowie & Bell, Black & William) • Active engagement (Bonwell & Eison, Redish) • What aspects of inquiry instruction match what we know about cognition?

  26. 3. What’s so hard about inquiry-oriented teaching?Inquiry is not a natural act, as practitioner or instructor. • We have misconceptions about inquiry • There are practical classroom issues • Asking a good research question is really hard

  27. Remember your list of inquiry experiences and conceptions?Some Misconceptions about Inquiry • Research = book report • Rejecting a hypothesis is bad • Science requires lab equipment/lots of funding • Inquiry requires data-collection (on-line data doesn’t count) • There is a set linear method of scientific inquiry • (Inquiry is experimental, with controls, variables & hypotheses) • Generating scientific questions is the easy part; analyzing data is the hard part

  28. Typical instructor and student concerns (complaints). Yes, we mean you. • Takes too much time • I have too many students • My students have too low an aptitude • This kind of instruction hurts smart students • Can’t you just Google the answer? • Content is “watered down” • It is difficult • There is no answer key • They might ask a question that I can’t answer! • What if my hypothesis isn’t right ?!?

  29. Asking a good research question is really hard! • Remember asking research questions with Gemini and Hubble? Which set of questions was easier? • Why? • What does this imply about teaching people the art of doing research? • Let’s try again:

  30. How Much Do Natural Systems Change Over Time? • Hours of Daylight • Percentage of Surface Covered by Snow/Ice? • Temperature • Pollution • CO2 • Ozone (03) • Cloud Cover • Plant Coverage • Rainfall • Wind Patterns • River Water Discharge • Earthquakes • Population (Humans or other organisms) • Others? You have to do a SCIENCE FAIR PROJECT!!! What is your research question?

  31. II. Data, Data Everywhere, But Not a Dot to Plot Hours of Daylight http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/ Rain, Snow, Temperature, Wind, Pressure http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/mppsearch.html Percentage of Surface Covered by Snow/Ice http://gis.ncdc.noaa.gov/website/ims-climatls/index.html or Browse at http://nsidc.org/data/nsidc-0046.html Archive at http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/SNOW/ Or http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ussc/pagemap.html Temperature http://www.temperatureworld.com/ or http://gis.ncdc.noaa.gov/website/ims-climatls/index.html and you can draw boxes to zoon Pollution Map Archives at http://airnow.gov/ CO2 http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccgg/iadv/ Ozone (03) http://www.ozonelayer.noaa.gov/data/data.htm Cloud Cover http://gis.ncdc.noaa.gov/website/ims-climatls/index.html and select OTHER Plant/Vegetation Coverage http://gisdata.usgs.net/website/ivm/viewer.php Rainfall http://hdsc.nws.noaa.gov/hdsc/pfds/index.html River Levels http://water.usgs.gov/waterwatch/ Wind Patterns River Water Levels or Volume Lightning http://thunder.nsstc.nasa.gov/lightning-cgi-bin/lis/LISSearch.pl?type=HTML? Earthquakes http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/ Volcanoes http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/update.html Human Population http://www.census.gov/ Traffic Congestion http://www.stolasgeospatial.com/traffic.html Sea Level Rising from Global Warming http://flood.firetree.net/ NASA Images from Space http://earth.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/efs/categories.htm Great Meta Collection of Real-Time Weather Data http://www.weatherimages.org/index.html (include index.html on this address) And of course, Google Mash-Ups http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/#top (check out right hand column)

  32. All Research Questions Are Not Created Equal Consider these questions inquiry proposed by students—do you think they would be fruitful and productive things to investigate as a scientific inquiry? Why or why not? How could they be improved? • How many days in a year? • How many hummingbird species feed near the school? • How does the pH of the school yard soil change over a month? • Which plants look different the day after it rains? • Are the number of acres burned by wildfire each year increasing? • Does it rain the same number of days in July every year? • Is the amount of plankton in the ocean related to the fluctuating sea surface temperature? • Are there more car accidents in Tucson during the full moon? In general, what do you think makes a lousy inquiry question? In general, what do you think makes a great inquiry question?

  33. What is the essence of a good research question?Noone knows….. At first, it’s easier to spot a bad question: • “A theoretical.”: Doesn’t connect to preexisting knowledge • “Who cares?”: What would you do with the answer if you could find it? • “Duh!”: The answer to the question is obvious. • “Black box.”: Input….output…don’t know what happened….

  34. Resources • Colburn, A.- What Teacher Educators Need to Know about Inquiry-Based Instruction • http://www.csulb.edu/~acolburn/AETS.htm

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