Teaching Inquiry:Can You Walk the Walk?

Emilie DrobnesGoddard Space Flight Center

Wil van der VeenNew Jersey Astronomy Center for Education

How Students Learn

Principle #1: Engage Prior Understandings

Principle #2: The Essential Role of Factual Knowledge and Conceptual Frameworks in Understanding

Principle #3: The Importance of Self-Monitoring

From: How Students Learn (NRC, 2005)

Principle #3The Importance of Self-Monitoring

Read the following passage from a literary critic, and pay attention to the strategies you use to comprehend:

If a serious literary critic were to write a favorable, full-length review of How Could I Tell Mother She Frightened My Boyfriends Away, Grace Plumbuster’s new story, his startled readers would assume that he had gone mad, or that Grace Plumbuster was his editor’s wife.

(SOURCE: Whimbey and Whimbey (1975, p. 42).

Learning Cycles

FERAFocus – Explore – Reflect - Apply

From: Science for All Children (NSRC, 1996)

OPERAOpen – Prior – Experience – Reflect - Apply

From: What are the Similarities Between Scientific Research and Science Education Reform (Morrow, 2005)

Sundials

Students observe the patterns of day and night andthe movements of the shadows of objects on theEarth during the course of a day.

1. How would you explore students’ ideas and preconceived notions?

2. How would you carry out the experiment?

3. How would you help students reflect on the experiment?

4. How would you help students apply their new understandings?

Contact Information

Emilie Drobnes

emilie.drobnes@gsfc.nasa.gov

Wil van der Veen

wvanderv@raritanval.edu

http://sdoepo.gsfc.nasa.gov/presentations/