USING THE METHOD OF MULTIPLE WORKING HYPOTHESES TO FRAME AN INQUIRY-BASED SCIENCE LABORATORY

1. USING THE METHOD OF MULTIPLE WORKING HYPOTHESES TO FRAME AN INQUIRY-BASED SCIENCE LABORATORY Kari L. Lavalli & Sally K. Sommers Smith Division of Natural Sciences

2. The goal: student-directed inquiry • Required year-long general education course • Theme: evolutionary theory, human evolution as a case study • Challenge students to design and perform experiments, interpret data, and write about their findings • Avoid “cookbook” labs • Make laboratory the focus of the course

3. The core text for this course • The Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses (T.C.Chamberlain, 1897, reprinted 1931) • Idea: Scientists become attached to their explanations; these attachments influence the data collected and analyzed • Multiple hypotheses prevent focus on a single explanation • Elimination experiments narrow the possibilities, until only a few explanations are likely

4. APPLICATION TO STUDENT LEARNING • Students are presented with opportunities to observe organisms closely • These opportunities included: • Observation of gorillas at Franklin Park Zoo; comparison with human behavior • Territorial behavior of Betta splendans (fighting fish) • Mating behavior of Drosophila melanogaster (fruit flies)

5. APPLICATION TO STUDENT LEARNING Initially, students observe carefully, using behavioral sampling techniques From these data, students suggest multiple hypotheses to explain their observations Students test their hypotheses by designing and performing experiments Students share their hypotheses and raw data with the class in short presentations Lab groups write a formal laboratory report on their findings and conclusions

6. Laboratory groups Sasha Shahidinijad and Jonathan Ho

7. Student experiments • Reina Yasouka • Charlotte Altirs • Erica Cohn

10. STUDENTS LEARN TO DESCRIBE EXPERIMENTS

11. STUDENTS LEARN TO GRAPH DATA

12. OUTCOMES • Students become accustomed to formalizing their observations and turning them into answerable questions • Students become accustomed to the idea that several different explanations may be considered to explain a set of observations • Students become accustomed to designing experiments with quantifiable endpoints, and graphing their data immediately • Students become proficient at presenting their hypotheses and data to other lab groups • Challenges: students have difficulty communicating their observations, findings, and conclusions in formal laboratory reports • Opportunities to revise lab reports improve scores, but lessons learned in revision may not be repeatable • We are currently testing ways of improving student writing in the sciences