MEERG Seminar presentation by Chris Thompson - 1 Aug 2014 Brave Old World - Rediscovering the Nature of Inquiry in Our Classrooms

1. Science
Brave Old World - Rediscovering the
Nature of Inquiry in Our Classrooms
Chris Thompson
OLT Extension Grant, 2014: Taking Inquiry-
Oriented Learning to the Teaching Coalface
with Gerry Rayner, Theo Hughes & Les Kirkup.

2. 2

3. Our Journey – The IDEA Experiments
2012
 Mood For Change
 What We Did & How We Did It
 Getting People On Board
2013
 Student Perceptions
 The IDEAs are Spreading
2014
 OLT Extension Grant
3

4. Mood For Change
Why change anything?
The LTAS project
Changes in Secondary
Education
(National Curriculum)
4

5. Mood For Change
TLOs have been drafted for most disciplines.
Take these chemistry TLOs for example:
Do these things REALLY take place in a teaching lab??
5

6. Answer
The IDEA Experiments
Inquiry
Design
Explore
?

7. The IDEA Experiments

8. Here’s what our Monash
Science Teaching Associates
think as a group (n ~ 48)
Perceptions of Inquiry Evaluation
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9. 9
Does it work?
 We definitely think so!
Is it easy to set up?
 Design
 Demonstrators
Are my colleagues on board?
 Yes, and the IDEAS are
spreading.
 Higher year levels
 Beyond our Faculty
The IDEA Experiments

10. 10
 “Did you enjoy this practical?”
• 72 % - yes, 18 % - no
 Some of the reasoning from students who did not enjoy the
experiment is exemplified by the following comments:
 “I did not like the lack of guidance.”
 “There was not enough guidance - didn't know what I was
trying to accomplish at the end.”
 “Was pretty lost at first.”
 “It was a bit harder and there wasn't as much guidance.”
 “Too open ended not much guidance.”
Student Perspectives

11. 11
“What did you think was the main lesson to be learnt from
this practical?”:
 "How to work as a scientist without any knowledge of (a)
substance and determine it through experimentation"
 "Experimenters face a great deal of challenges when they
are trying to find out something unknown. Even when they
take all necessary precautions, they still may be faced with
errors."
 "The issues and situations a chemist could experience in
the field."
Student Perspectives

12. Controlling the chaos
 Using ‘inquiry’ in the classroom does not necessarily mean
completely open-ended activities.
 Herron’s Hierachy of Inquiry (1971!)

13. An OLT Extension Grant!
Aim: Maintain the momentum of Les’s IOL Fellowship by
generating the changes required for genuine inquiry -
from design to the teaching coalface.
Deliverables
1. IOL workshops – Roadtrip!
 La Trobe, Fed Uni, UTas, Deakin
 Target audience TAs /
demonstrators
2. An IOL forum
3. An IOL Best Practice booklet

14. 1. IOL Workshops
The ACME Paper Towel Evaluation
 The Inquiry / Problem / Question
 Split into Groups and Brainstorm for 5
minutes
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15. 1. IOL Workshops
The ACME Paper Towel Evaluation
 How can this approach be applied to our laboratories?
 What is holding IOL back in our classrooms?
 How much IOL is appropriate?
 What role for the recipe?

16. 1. IOL Workshops
Great discussions around challenges/difficulties/concerns.
Already large, and ever growing cohorts
Cost
Time
Assessment
Future-shock! Abbott-Pyne Era?
Solutions!

17. 1. IOL Workshops
But best of all, we witnessed the growth of a community of
practice …

18. 2. IOL Forum
Keynote Presentation from OLT Fellow Prof Les Kirkup
A summary of our experiences via the IOL workshops
Six vignettes – 20 minute presentations showcasing what
people are doing in their classrooms
~100 delegates from 15 different institutions
Two vignettes from secondary teachers … we need to get
moving!

19. 3. IOL Good Practice Booklet
Designed to be a resourse for
people wanting to jump in the
deep end.
Transform stale old recipe pracs
into active-learning classes.
Trade secrets
Exemplars from practictioners
 Honest, reflective accounts of
how these developments
actually went.

20. Research?
Perceptions of inquiry.
Student vs demonstrators vs academic staff – intriguing!
What’s missing?
Is IOL really effective in enhancing students’ scientific
literacy?
Do students really gain the higher order skills through
embedding and scaffolding IOL in science degrees?
How to measure this?