SCIENTISTS DEVELOPMENT: THE IMPACT ON FOURTH TO … · 2018. 10. 13. · Students Learn Science in the Classroom” (Bransford & Donovan, 2005), authentic inquiry activities on waves,

JUDITH A. MORRISON

SCIENTISTS’ PARTICIPATION IN TEACHER PROFESSIONALDEVELOPMENT: THE IMPACT ON FOURTH TO EIGHTH GRADE

TEACHERS’ UNDERSTANDING AND IMPLEMENTATIONOF INQUIRY SCIENCE

Received: 13 April 2012; Accepted: 5 April 2013

ABSTRACT. The impact of a professional development experience involving scientistsand fourth to eighth grade teachers of science was explored. Teachers attended a summerprogram at a research facility where they had various experiences such as job shadowingand interviewing scientists. They also participated in authentic inquiry investigations andplanned inquiry units for their classrooms. Data on teachers’ understanding andimplementation of inquiry were collected through surveys, questionnaires, andclassroom observations. Findings show that the teachers’ understanding of inquiryimproved and most participants were able to successfully implement inquiry science intheir classrooms. Barriers to the implementation of inquiry practices and the impact ofspecific experiences with the scientists were explored.

KEY WORDS: inquiry science teaching, professional development of science teachers,teacher collaborations with scientists

INTRODUCTION

The current reform documents, the National Science Education Standards(NSES) (National Research Council [NRC], 1996) and the Benchmarks forScience Literacy (American Association for the Advancement of Science[AAAS], 1993), have stressed the need for teachers to guide their students inconducting science investigations. Teachers are being encouraged at alllevels to involve students in authentic scientific investigations and work withstudents on the processes of science rather than focusing narrowly on thelaws, concepts, and theories of science (AAAS, 1993). The NSES havecalled for teachers to base their teaching of science on “inquiry into authenticquestions generated from student experiences” (NRC, 1996, p. 31), but inorder to do this successfully, teachers will need to develop knowledge aboutscientific inquiry themselves.

Supporting inquiry science investigations in the classroom requiresteachers to provide students with inquiry activities, reflective discussions,and encouragement to confront and revise their current understandings(Driver, Asoko, Leach, Mortimer, & Scott, 1994). In inquiry science

International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education (2014) 12: 793Y816# National Science Council, Taiwan 2013

investigations, emphasis is placed on students’ own questions, ideas, andunderstandings; inquiry science exists as a constructivist practice supportingmeaningful learning (NRC, 1996a, b; Tobin & Tippins, 1993). Carrying outinquiry investigations stemming from authentic questions allows students toconstruct their own understanding of real-world, relevant problems ratherthan verification laboratories where they seek one single “right” answer(Roth, 1995). Harlen (2004) has stressed that there are many obstacles toovercome when implementing inquiry and that this implementation needs tobe gradual; Keys and Bryan (2001) emphasized the need for a focus onteachers’ beliefs and knowledge when evaluating the implementation ofinquiry science. Yager (2005) has recommended that professionaldevelopment experiences allow teachers to make plans to carry out newimplementations during the school year and then collect evidence and reflecton the impact of their implementation.

Providing professional development experiences for teachers wherethey are partnered with scientists in order to experience scientific researchhas been shown to support teachers in their understanding of authenticscience research (Dresner & Worley, 2006), improve their scienceteaching and learning (Dixon & Wilke, 2007; Kim & Fortner, 2007)and, in the case of elementary teachers, increase their confidence inteaching science (Pop, Dixon, & Grove, 2010). The inclusion of scientistsin the professional development of teachers has been recommended for anumber of years (NRC, 1996b). Therefore, we designed a yearlongproject where teachers’ beliefs about inquiry and their understanding ofthe nature of science were a focus while they interacted with scientistsand engineers on a number of levels and were then required to design andimplement inquiry-based science in their classrooms. The teachers wereprovided feedback on their implementation of the inquiry science andsupport for reflection throughout the process from both scientists andscience educators. We wanted to see how the teachers’ implementation ofinquiry science could be improved through explicit instruction focused oninquiry and experiences involving interactions with scientists.

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Teachers’ Understanding of Inquiry Science

In order to have teachers change the way they teach science and adopt amore inquiry stance of teaching and learning, it is important to changeteachers’ way of thinking and understanding about science and how

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scientific knowledge is generated. Lotter, Harwood, and Bonner (2007)have suggested that the way in which teachers view science may affectthe way they may implement inquiry science teaching, and teachers mayhold a variety of ideas about inquiry science (Demir & Abell, 2010; Kanget al., 2008). Teachers’ prior learning orientations and past experiencesmay also impact their learning about inquiry (Eick & Reed, 2002, Kagan,1992). A study (Cronin-Jones, 1991) of two middle school teachers foundthat their ideas about science being a body of factual knowledge andviews that students do not have the skills for autonomous learningimpeded their efforts to implement a reform-based science curriculum.Research (Brickhouse, 1990; Duschl & Wright, 1989; Gallagher, 1991)has found that teachers’ views about the nature of science as an objectivebody of knowledge created by a rigid scientific method hindered theirteaching of an accurate view of scientific inquiry. Teachers oftenunderstand inquiry as a list of process skills that need to be checked offrather than seeing inquiry as a whole (Keys & Bryan, 2001; Lee, Hart,Cuevas, & Enders, 2004). Crawford (2007) has stressed that teachers’views about science may influence how they will teach science as inquiry,and Luft (2001) found that experienced teachers may change their viewsthrough inquiry-based professional development and, therefore, movetowards more student-centered practices.

Teachers’ Implementation of Inquiry Science

There may be a number of factors that contribute or act to impedeteachers’ implementation of inquiry science in the classroom. In order forteachers to adequately engage in inquiry science with their students, theymay need to engage in new roles that require mentoring, guiding, orcollaborating (Crawford, 2000). Roehrig and Luft (2004) found thatbeginning secondary teachers had five constraints that impacted theirimplementation of inquiry science: the teachers’ (a) understanding ofinquiry and the nature of science, (b) strength of content knowledge, (c)pedagogical content knowledge, (d) beliefs about teaching in general, and(e) management and student concerns. This last factor, concern about theability or maturity of students to engage in inquiry, was also seen by Keysand Bryan (2001) as a factor in teachers’ implementation of inquiry, andthe strength of a teacher’s content knowledge has been established as acritical factor for successful implementation of inquiry science (Gess-Newsome, 1999). In addition to these factors, Hayes (2002) found thatteachers may have concerns about letting go of authority and Furtak(2006) saw that teachers had concerns about dealing with students’

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requests for the “right” answers when attempting inquiry science.Researchers (Britner & Finson, 2005; van Zee & Roberts, 2001) haveseen that participation in authentic inquiry experiences may improveteachers’ confidence to teach inquiry and their understandings aboutinquiry. How these authentic inquiry explorations may translate intoreform-based practice may not be completely clear and researchers haveseen a variety of results (Blanchard, Southerland, & Granger, 2009;Brown & Melear, 2006; Lustik, 2009) and recommend further research inthis area.

Professional Development Experiences with Scientists

Teachers of science are being asked by the science education reforms tobecome competent at involving their students in the practices of inquiryscience. “For students to understand inquiry and learn to use it in science,their teachers need to be well versed in inquiry and inquiry-basedmethods” (NRC, 2000, p. 739). Professional development experiences forteachers may range from research experiences at the elbows of scientiststo “kit-training” workshops. In order to be effective, researchers haverecommended that professional development be long term, focused onscience content and pedagogy, and connected to the teachers’ classrooms(Loucks-Horsley, Stiles, Mundry, Love, & Hewson, 2010). Theserecommendations and others (NRC, 1996b) regarding professionaldevelopment for science teachers focus on the scientists as the providerof science content. In a review of teacher–scientist collaborations,Drayton and Falk (2006) demonstrate that most of these collaborationsare based on the scientist providing instruction on science content oracting as a mentor in a research situation. The majority of thecollaborations place teachers in the position of student with the scientistas the instructor. Although many studies focus on the improvement ofteachers’ content understanding, projects focused on teachers’involvement in an authentic research study in collaboration with ascientist (Caton, Brewer, & Brown, 2000; Pop et al., 2010) have shownthat teachers’ views of inquiry may be improved, as well as theirconfidence about conducting inquiry with their students.

RESEARCH QUESTION

Based on the need to determine how professional developmentexperiences involving scientists impacted the participating teachers’


understanding and implementation of inquiry, we developed thefollowing research question to focus our research: How do directexperiences with and support from scientists affect teachers’understanding and implementation of inquiry science?

OVERVIEW OF THE PROJECT

During the summer, the teachers participated in a 2-week course, theNature of Scientific Inquiry, held at the Laser InterferometerGravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). During the course, teacherswere provided with explicit instruction on the nature of science andinquiry, experiences job shadowing and interviewing scientists,instruction on teaching inquiry science based on the book “HowStudents Learn Science in the Classroom” (Bransford & Donovan,2005), authentic inquiry activities on waves, electricity, and magnetism,and both content and pedagogical support as they developed an inquiryimplementation plan. This inquiry plan was based on one of the scienceunits or “kits” they were currently teaching. Unlike earlier studies (Brown& Melear, 2006; Caton, Brewer, & Brown, 2000), the objective wasnot to have teachers involved themselves in the research sciencetaking place at the laboratory. Rather, teachers spent time reflectingon science as a process, discussing the characteristics of the nature ofscience with scientists, and identifying examples of these characteristicsat the research facility. The professional development experience wasdesigned to allow science teachers opportunities to meet with scientistsand talk to them individually and informally, become involved in discussionswith scientists on a variety of topics, and get a first hand picture ofwhat scientists do on a daily basis. During the 2-week course, teachersjob shadowed a scientist for a morning and an afternoon and then spent1 h interviewing a different scientist about his/her views about thenature of science, science teaching, and supporting students to learnscience. Throughout the 2-week course, partnering scientists attendedthe class, joined in group sessions, either led or participated in theinquiry investigations, and provided science content advice as teachersdesigned their inquiry plans. The course was designed to provide theteachers with explicit instruction on the characteristics of the nature ofscience that are recommended as the knowledge of the way that scienceworks that is requisite for scientific literacy (AAAS, 1993). Readings anddiscussion during the course focusing on inquiry involved the bookInquiry and the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 2000) with


modeling and analysis of the five essential features of inquiry presented inthis text.

Following the summer course, the teachers attended four follow-upworkshops held throughout the school year focused on professionaldevelopment on both science content and implementing inquiry science.During these workshops, teachers met in small groups and the project’sparticipating scientists joined these groups and were involved in thediscussions. The teachers were also involved in inquiry activities for theirown learning during the workshops presented by the partnering scientists.During the fall, the teachers were asked to try out teaching an inquiryactivity while both scientists and the science educator observed their classand spent time providing feedback and debriefing on the lesson. After theclassroom observations and debriefings, the science educator held emailconversations with the teachers based on their inquiry implementation.The observations and debriefings were repeated in the spring.

METHODOLOGY

Participants

The participants in the project were 18 teachers from two public schooldistricts; these teachers were selected by the principals in their buildingsbased on their predicted ability to become teacher leaders in the area ofscience and on their willingness to spend the time with the project. Therewere four 4th grade teachers, two teachers who taught both 4th and 5thgrades alternating every other year, six 5th grade teachers, three 6th gradeteachers, two 7th grade teachers, and one 8th grade teacher. After thesummer course, one of the fifth grade teachers was dropped from the datacollection because she was assigned to be the district math coach. Alsoparticipating in this project were scientists from the LIGO and onescientist from the local community college. These partners presented andworked in small groups with the teachers on science inquiryinvestigations during the summer course, attended and presented contentinformation at the follow-up workshops, and attended the classroomobservations and provided teachers feedback on their lessons.

Data Collection and AnalysisViews of Scientific Inquiry. Data were collected on the teachers’ viewsand understanding of inquiry through three administrations of the Viewsof Scientific Inquiry (VOSI) questionnaire (Schwartz, Lederman, &


Lederman, 2008; for the VOSI questions used, see Appendix 1). Thesethree administrations were at the beginning of the summer course, the endof the summer course, and at the end of the yearlong project. Thisquestionnaire provided information regarding the initial views theteachers held as they entered the program and, through a secondadministration 2 weeks later at the end of the course, we were able toassess any changes in these views that could be attributed to the course.At the end of the project, the VOSI was again given to the teachers in anattempt to assess if any changes in their views had occurred throughoutthe school year as they were involved in implementation of inquiry intheir classrooms and experiences encountered at the four follow-upworkshops.

From the VOSI survey, two separate analyses of the data were carriedout. The first involved identifying seven of the responses from the surveyas either having an “informed” answer or an “uninformed” answer. In thepaper by Schwartz et al. (2008), sample VOSI questions were providedwith the “informed” answers elaborated upon by the authors. We usedthis information to create a rubric to score the seven selected questionsfrom the VOSI. The scores on the seven items were then given adescriptor to label the teacher’s level of understanding of these sevenitems. Teachers providing one correct response in only one category wereassigned a descriptor of “lacks understanding”; those providing sevencorrect responses were classified as “outstanding.” The descriptors “fair,mediocre, moderate, good, and great” were used for responses in betweenfor scores ranging from two to six correct responses.

We used these scores to compare the teachers, both individually and asa group, from their pre-VOSI to their post-VOSI administrations. Wewere specifically interested in any general trends among the group ofteachers. For example, we looked at how many teachers began theprogram thinking that there is one rigid scientific method and how manyended the program with a view that many variations of the scientificmethod may be possible.

The second level of analysis of the VOSI was to read the responses toall the questions on the questionnaire and note any evidence of views thatwere uninformed and those that could be labeled as informed. Forexample, when a teacher provided the response “When you put red foodcoloring in water, why does the celery turn red?” when asked to give anexample of something that illustrated their definition of a scientificexperiment, this was coded as uninformed. These codes were used toanalyze any changes from beginning to end of the project in individualteachers and across the whole group of teachers.


The VOSI was able to provide information about the teachers’understanding of inquiry science which henceforth will be referred to as“views” of science inquiry.

Written Work. During the summer course, the teachers were asked towrite daily reflection papers addressing their ideas about various aspectsaddressed during the course as well as a final course reflection paper. Themain source of data was a paper written by each teacher about his/herinterview with a scientist. This paper included a report of the scientist’scurrent job, background, and education. The paper also included theteacher’s interpretation of the scientist’s views of the nature of science,science teaching, and recommendations for science education. Otherpapers that were used for data in this study were those containingreferences to teachers’ perceived factors affecting the implementation ofinquiry, the teachers own definitions of inquiry and how these may havechanged during the course, and the teachers’ future plans for teachinginquiry science. The teachers’ work was read and analyzed for thepresence of statements mentioning a teacher’s views and understandingabout science or scientific inquiry, a teacher’s views or attitude towardsteaching science, a teacher’s specific classroom practices surrounding theteaching of science, or experiences with scientists during the project. Thewritten work completed during the summer course was used indeveloping the profile of each teacher and his/her views of scientificinquiry.

Observations. The participating teachers were observed teaching sciencetwice during the school year. The first observation was conducted duringthe early part of the year (September or October) and the second duringthe last 2 months of the school year. Teachers were asked to make surethat they were teaching some part of either the inquiry lesson that theydesigned in the course or another inquiry science lesson during theobservation. The teachers submitted a specific time and date when theywanted to be observed and observations were conducted by the author incollaboration with one of the partnering scientists from LIGO or thecommunity college. After the observations, the observing team spent timedebriefing with the teacher about the observation either in person or viaemail.

During the observation and debriefing sessions, data were collectedthrough the completion of the rubric (see Appendix 2) and theresearcher’s field notes. The teachers’ inquiry lessons were assessedrelative to the five essential features of an inquiry lesson (NRC, 2000) andevaluated as demonstrating implementation of inquiry (at least three of


the essential features on the rubric present), attempting implementation ofinquiry (one or two of the features on the rubric present), or noimplementation of inquiry (no evidence of any of the features).

After the debriefing session, the teachers were asked to provide anyreflections they had about the lesson observed or issues that had beenraised during the debriefing. Often, the teachers were also asked todescribe the science class that followed the session observed so theresearcher could gain a bigger picture of how the lesson observed hadbeen developed or culminated. For each of the participants, a short writtenoverview was completed where the observations were described and therubric comments analyzed. The researcher’s notes taken during debriefingsessions were analyzed for statements made by the teachers relevant totheir views of scientific inquiry or changes in teaching practices. Thenotes were also analyzed for any mention of concerns the teachers hadabout implementation or of factors affecting the implementation.

End of Project Surveys. At the end of the project during the final follow-upworkshop, the participating teachers completed a survey consisting ofquestions asking them to reflect on their perceived overall growth and anychange in their views of inquiry teaching, their implementation of scienceinquiry, presenting science to students, problems encountered in theimplementation of inquiry, and future plans for implementation of scienceinquiry (for a copy of the survey, see Appendix 3). In the year following theparticipants’ experiences with scientists, they were asked to reflect on howtheir experiences with the scientists may have affected the way they teachinquiry science. The question that they were asked to reflect upon, via anemail survey, was: How did your interactions and experiences with scientistsduring all your time in the project affect your thinking about andimplementation of inquiry science?

The teachers’ responses to the question were read and analyzed for thepresence of statements about changes in teaching, barriers to implementinginquiry, successes in inquiry implementation, their experiences withscientists, or any mention of change in attitude or beliefs about inquiryscience or inquiry science teaching. These responses were part of theteachers’ profiles summarizing their views of inquiry, self-reportedimplementation of inquiry, and identified barriers to implementation.

All data were triangulated across all sources in an attempt to paint apicture of each participant and his/her view of inquiry science and thechanges this view may have undergone during the project and the amountof inquiry implementation that the participant was able to achieve duringthe year. All data sources were analyzed for any references to the


teachers’ experiences with scientists, either during the summer course,classroom observations, or follow-up workshops, as well as any referenceto teachers’ perceived changes in teaching or thinking due to interactionswith the scientists. Also, patterns of reported factors affecting theimplementation of inquiry were noted and analyzed.

FINDINGS

Our main exploration focused on how the teachers’ experiences withscientists might affect their views and implementation of inquiry science.Wefirst looked at how those views changed over the course of the project andthen for evidence of changes stemming from interactions with the scientists.All of the teachers improved in responses on the seven selected VOSIquestions, but this improvement ranged from a minimal change to a moresignificant change. It was determined that 47 % of the teachers changed atleast one of their answers between July and May and 94 % of the teacherschanged four or more answers. The most promising of these changes wasthat, in the post-project survey, 100 % of the teachers said that there was nopredetermined set of steps involved with the scientific method as opposed to63.6 % that provided that particular answer in the pre-summer course survey.

Teachers moved towards answering the VOSI questions with good,great, or outstanding understanding of the selected statements aboutscientific inquiry (see Table 1). One teacher did not complete the post-project VOSI, so the total participants were 16.

From the analysis of the other responses on the VOSI, wewere able to addinformation to the profile generated for each teacher. From comparing theresponses teachers made on their pre-VOSI to the responses on the end of

TABLE 1

Pre-VOSI/post-VOSI (N= 16)

Descriptor Frequency pre-VOSI Frequency post-VOSI

Lacks understanding 2 0Fair understanding 1 0Mediocre understanding 3 0Moderate understanding 3 0Good understanding 3 6Great understanding 2 7Outstanding understanding 2 3


project VOSI, we saw that their ideas about inquiry had becomemore clearlyarticulated and aligned with the accepted views of inquiry (NRC, 2000).

We also gained a picture of how the teachers’ views of inquiry sciencechanged from their responses on their written work during the summer course,their comments during their debrief sessions and the follow-up sessions, andtheir reflections on the final survey. From these sources, we saw that themajority of the teachers did improve in their understandings of inquiry sciencedue to experiencing what scientists do, evidenced by statements such as:

One thing that I have learned is that within the investigation itself, scientists are always refiningthe procedure. What have they learned so far? Are there ways to clean up the procedure? Whatare you hoping to infer in the end? It might change and it often does change the direction of theresearch. It is not 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, stepwise. Investigations should be a little more open-ended innature. (Sid, seventh grade teacher, comment made during debrief session)

Many of the teachers mentioned how their ideas of inquiry and,consequently, the way in which they taught science had been non-inquiryprior to their participation in the project.

I really have a great understanding of what inquiry means and how it is very differentfrom what I have been doing in my own teaching. Through this course, I have come to therealization of how important it is to give students the experiences in science they deserve(Jenna, fifth grade teacher, final survey).

[In my past teaching] everything was step by step instruction as dictated by the teacher. Ilook back and realize I was the giver of information. My students did not learn that theyhad the capabilities to find the answers for themselves. They did not become motivated tofind answers because I was there to tell them if they were right or wrong. They also didn’tlearn that it takes time, repeated testing, and the possibility that you may not get theanswer you expected. (Lara, fourth grade teacher, final survey)

Teachers’ comments on their final reflections and in written work abouttheir experiences during the summer course highlighted that, throughauthentic inquiry experiences and interactions with scientists, their views ofinquiry had been impacted. After talking to scientists, interviewing them, andparticipating in a day of job shadowing, the teachers made comments such as:

As a classroom teacher, they [the scientists] made me realize the need to nurture curiosity,creativeness, and questions. I need to be comfortable with students discovering theanswers to the question they have and realize that some of my students may know morethan me about a topic. (Ellen, sixth grade teacher, written work)

This was an extremely enlightening experience. I learned so much from just being outhere at LIGO. The time spent job shadowing [a scientist] and then interviewing anoperator was very helpful. Without this my understanding of nature of science and inquirywould have just been book knowledge. (Jenna, fifth grade teacher, final reflections)


Many of the strategies I have used to implement inquiry science have come from interactionswith LIGO scientists. In my interviewing a physicist…, he talked about how scientists alwayscome to the question “does it make sense?” I have used this question many times in reviewingdata and procedures with students. (Steve, seventh grade teacher, final reflections)

Teachers were asked to reflect on how their teaching had changedthroughout the year as they implemented inquiry science on the end-of-project survey. Representative quotes are listed below:

When the focus question is presented, I am now comfortable with asking the students howthey would investigate the question. Also, I can find lessons within the “kit” that canallow for more inquiry. (Jess, fourth grade teacher)

My students are entrusted to make more decisions on the design of procedures. Theydesign and implement investigations to answer questions based on previousinvestigations. (Terry, fifth grade teacher)

It was clear from the data reviewed that the majority of ourparticipating teachers were able to implement strategies to teach in aninquiry fashion, 14 out of the 17 teachers had one or both classroomobservations labeled either “implementing inquiry” or “approachingimplementation.” In Table 2, examples of observation rubric data froma lesson that was evaluated as non-implementation (no evidence of any ofthe five features) and a lesson that was characterized as inquiry (due to thepresence of four inquiry features) are both provided.

When we looked at the teachers not observed implementing inquiry andattempted to identify factors that seemed to impede their use of inquirystrategies, we found that this lack of implementation could not be directlyattributed to any weakness in views of inquiry. All of the teachers in ourproject did show improvement in their views and attainment of at least thelevel we labeled as “good” in their understanding of inquiry. What we didfind was that these teachers felt impeded by other factors, yet consistentlyexpressed interest in trying to do inquiry teaching in the future. For example,quotes from teachers who were not seen using inquiry strategies were:

My teaching has improved as the year has gone on. I am looking forward to next yearbecause I will know my curriculum and can build into/onto it. This was difficult because Iwas learning the curriculum with the students. (Cassie, fifth grade teacher, final survey)

Our analysis of the teachers not implementing inquiry was that factorsimpeding the implementation were strong enough to keep them fromsuccessfully trying inquiry in their classrooms, and in order to gain adeeper understanding of the factors that may impact the implementationof inquiry science in the classroom, we explored what factors, other than


views about scientific inquiry, may support or impede teachers’implementation of inquiry science. From the feedback provided on thefinal survey and in conversations during observation debriefing sessions,we were able to identify a number of factors that the teachers mentionedas having an impact on their levels of implementation.

A large number of the teachers mentioned that administrative supportand administrative understanding of what science inquiry is were

TABLE 2

Sample observation comments

Essential feature Non-implementation Implementation

Learner engages inscientificallyoriented questions

Students were instructedto find the densities ofthree liquids.

The students generated theirown questions to test in thestream tables after havingpracticed earlier with teachergenerated Q.

Learner gives priorityto evidence inresponding toquestions

Students followed theprocedure for getting thedensity, they were asked torecord observational data.

The students set up theinvestigation having freechoice of variables to test andthe teacher clearly stated shewould not be guiding them;they had to do this on theirown. They workedindependently and learnedfrom mistakes they made!

Learner formulatesexplanations fromevidence

Not observed in this lesson. When sharing their ideas, thestudents were asked to stateWHY something occurred;they had to base this on theirevidence.

Learner connectsexplanations toscientificknowledge

Not observed in this lesson. This was an area that couldhave been stressed a bit more.Could the students havecompared what they sawhappening in their tables topictures of landforms or localgeography?

Learnercommunicatesand justifiesexplanations

Not observed in this lesson. Communication occurredpublically as they shared theirinvestigations and thestudents also wrote abouttheir investigations in theirnotebooks.


important influences on how comfortable they felt about trying somethingnew such as science inquiry. It is important to note that, in the schoolwhere two of the teachers in our project made noticeable growth in theimplementation of inquiry, the administrator was interested in andsupportive of their attempts to try something new.

Another factor that may play a strong part in determining whatinstructional decisions teachers make is the self-efficacy they feel towardsteaching the specific instructional practice (Lumpe et al., 2000). We foundquotes made by the teachers in the debriefing sessions and in the follow-upsessions demonstrated that, through their participation in the program, theirconfidence to teach inquiry science improved, thus impacting theirimplementation. Representative quotes from the participating teachers were“I feel that the hands-on experiences in the program have helped increase myconfidence and my ability to share with students.,” “I feel empoweredbecause I now understand what science is!,” “I feel more confident usingthese strategies [inquiry] and my students are learning.,” and “I feel like I ama much more effective teacher.”

Teachers mentioned that time was often a constraint when they wereattempting to implement inquiry science. Some of the representativequotes addressing this concern were “[I have] time constraints when thekits go back. Students want to keep exploring but materials are notavailable,” “[Inquiry] uses more time, students must plan theirprocedures,” “I feel that I got to less content … in order to do inquiry(this isn’t necessarily a problem, just a bit of a frustration) but I do knowthe learning was more meaningful,” and “[When doing inquiry] some ofmy other subjects got completely erased for the day putting me behind inthe district pacing.”

A lack of strong content understanding on the part of the teacher wasalso identified as a constraint when attempting to implement inquiryscience. When asked to identify some of the problems they encounteredwhen implementing inquiry, the teachers mentioned: “My ownunderstanding of the content” and “I know that I need to be stronger inthe lesson content.”

Another factor that was consistently mentioned by the teachers as a barrierto implementing inquiry was classroom management. These teachersmentioned that they struggled with allowing students freedom to explorewithout losing complete control. The teachers that had the most concern withmaintaining classroom management were those who did the least inquiry.The comments of these teachers are characterized by the following quotes:“At the elementary age level, it is difficult to hand the reigns to the studentsand let them explore in a large group setting” and “My management efforts


did not successfully deal with disruptive students. I was reticent to do more[inquiry]. Although inquiry probably would have helped not hurt.”

CONCLUSIONS/DISCUSSION

We found that, as Keys and Bryan (2001) have stressed, the beliefs andknowledge of the teachers must be a focus of the professionaldevelopment experience and teachers must be supported throughout theimplementation process. In order to develop an understanding of scienceinquiry and support the implementation of inquiry science, the teachers’interactions with scientists was a focus of this project. Both through theirexperiences doing authentic inquiry investigations with scientists ascollaborators and interactions such as interviews and job shadows, theteachers gained a better understanding of inquiry science.

One of the strengths of this project was that, as the teachers wereexperiencing the processes of science, they had support and a context for thatinquiry due to the course being held at a science research site. Part of theteachers’ learning about inquiry was to talk about the nature of science withscientists and other teachers for 2 weeks. The improvement we saw inteachers’ understanding of inquiry was certainly partially attributable to thecontext of science that teachers found themselves in during the summercourse. In order to change the teachers’ views about scientific inquiry, it wasessential to provide them not only with authentic inquiry experiencesthemselves but also with one-on-one interactions with scientists that helpedthem to solidify their views of inquiry. Researchers (Pop et al., 2010;Westerlund et al., 2002) have previously shown that, through authentic inquiryexperiences involving scientists, teachers have improved their ideas aboutinquiry; our work specifically demonstrated that the teachers solidified theirunderstandings through conversations about inquiry with scientists and fromhearing the scientists talk about their own work and perspectives on scientificresearch. As recommended by Kagan (1992), during the summer course andthe follow-up workshops, the teachers were also given many opportunities toconfront their preexisting beliefs about science and then work through explicitprocesses to examine and integrate new information into their existing beliefsystems. As the emphasis of the summer course was on changing teachers’understanding of scientific inquiry through authentic inquiry experiences andconversations with scientists, we predicted that teachers would havesubsequent success in their implementation of inquiry due to a change inunderstanding scientific inquiry (Keys & Bryan, 2001; Lotter et al., 2007).


Although researchers have seen a variety of results regarding the effect ofauthentic inquiry experiences on teachers’ implementation of inquirypractices (Blanchard et al., 2009; Brown & Melear, 2006; Lustik, 2009),we found that the majority of the teachers in this project did successfullyimplement inquiry in their classrooms. This was possibly due to a focusduring the summer course on providing teachers with time to plan their ownindividual inquiry lessons, one-on-one support in the specific contentarea of these lessons from the participating scientists, and specific models ofauthentic inquiry investigations they could use in their classrooms.Having been involved in these inquiry investigations as learnersprovided the teachers with strategies to use when implementing inquiry.

Another factor that we conclude assisted teachers in their implementation ofinquiry science in their classrooms was the focus placed on classroom-basedsupport during the school year from all members of the project. As stated byBrickhouse and Bodner (1992) and Loughran (1994), we saw that, whenteachers had support from their administrators and/or teaching partners, theywere more likely to be successful at implementing inquiry. When conductingthe classroom observations, we provided constructive feedback on how theteachers could implement inquiry; comments that were made were on topicssuch as how to better focus students’ questions, how to conduct debriefing andconclusion discussions after inquiry activities, and how to more clearlycommunicate the science content. Part of the success of this feedback was thatit did come from scientists and “non-education” partners. The teachers seemedto value this feedback as well as the distinction of having scientists visitingtheir rooms.

As demonstrated by quotes from the teachers, we saw an increase inteachers’ self-efficacy to implement science inquiry in their classrooms.As discussed by Lumpe et al. (2000), this self-efficacy is a majorcomponent in teachers’ decision-making processes. Through the focusduring the summer course on authentic inquiry learning experiences, wefeel that the participating teachers’ self-efficacy to carry out a scienceinquiry in their own classroom increased. After having seen inquiryteaching modeled and explained in a variety of science content contexts,the teachers felt themselves more prepared to teach inquiry.

There were some teachers who struggled and were not able to implementinquiry practices fully into their teaching: all but three of the teachers had atleast one observation rubric filled out with evidence of either implementing orattempting to implement inquiry teaching. This absence of clearly definedinquiry science in these classrooms may have stemmed from a number offactors that were impediments to implementing inquiry. The teachers didimprove in their views of inquiry but were not able to embrace inquiry fully


because of a lack of time or feeling flexible enough to make time, a lack ofcontent knowledge of the subject being covered, or concerns about losingcontrol of classroom management when freeing students up to do inquiry,barriers documented in other research (Keys & Bryan, 2001; Hayes, 2002;Roehrig & Luft, 2004). The teachers who were not successful in fullyembracing inquiry teaching held views about student learning and achievement(“My students are not at that level yet” or “I have too many disciplineproblems”) that possibly impacted their success at implementing inquiry. AsJones and Carter (2008) clearly emphasized, teachers may change in theirviews, yet their practice may not change due to the presence of all the issuesthat impact a teacher’s actions.

This project provided strong support for teachers as they attempted tochange their teaching practices. The desired changes in teaching practicesdid occur in the majority of teachers and the support system provided wascertainly part of their success. Without experiences and focused attentionon changing teachers’ views of inquiry, immediate feedback on classroomobservations, and collaboration and peer support throughout the schoolyear, we would not have seen the success we did.

Identification of the factors that often impede the implementation ofinquiry has helped in our planning for professional development andsubsequent offerings of this intervention. We have started to work withthe administrators in the buildings where the teachers are implementinginquiry, inviting them to sit in on classroom observations and attend thedebriefing sessions with the teachers. The hope is that this will improvethe administrators’ views of inquiry and inquiry teaching. It is critical towork on many aspects of the implementation of inquiry, as Krajcik &Blumenfeld (2005) found, successful reform efforts must be built onreform-based materials, successful professional development, andsystemic changes in policy and context.

We have seen that teachers are being asked to incorporate inquiry into theirscience teaching; we have also seen that teachers find this daunting and oftendo not even understand what inquiry science really is. The challenge forteachers is often overwhelming and all projects and programs that are able toprovide support for teachers in their implementation of inquiry are valuable. If aprofessional development program is able to provide teachers with justificationfor the implementation of inquiry science into their teaching using experiencesinvolving science and exposure to authentic science practices, then the successof that implementation will be more secure. Designing professionaldevelopment experiences for teachers focused on the participation of scientistsor engineers from any field or context will result in a program which providesthe teachers with a better understanding of science. As teachers learn about


what scientific inquiry really is and have exposure to how science is conducted,they will have a reason to want to implement inquiry in their classrooms andwill be convinced of its worth when they see the results. It is important toprovide teachers with professional development experiences that encompass allaspects of understanding inquiry, providing support not only for strategies butalso for understanding. Through a deeper understanding and stronger view ofinquiry, teachers will be motivated to implement it in their classroom.

APPENDIX 1Survey on Views of Scientific Inquiry (VOSI)

The following questions are asking for your views related to science andscientific investigations. There are no right or wrong answers.

1. What types of activities do scientists do to learn about the naturalworld? Be specific about how they go about their work.

2. What scientists choose to study and how they learn about the naturalworld may be influenced by a variety of factors. How do scientistsdecide what and how to investigate? Describe all the factors youthink influence the work of scientists. Be as specific as possible.

3.

(a) Write a definition of a scientific experiment:

A scientific experiment is …

(b) Give an example from something you have done or heard about inscience that illustrates your definition of a scientific experiment.

(c) Explainwhy you consider your example to be a scientific experiment.

4. A person interested in birds looked at hundreds of different types of birdswho eat different types of food. He noticed that birds who eat similartypes of food, tended to have similar shaped beaks. For example, birdswho eat hard shelled nuts have short, strong beaks, and birds who eatinsects from tide pools have long, slim beaks. He concluded that there is arelationship between beak shape and the type of food birds eat.

(a) Do you consider this person’s investigation to be scientific?Please explain why or why not.

(b) Do you consider this person’s investigation to be an experiment?Please explain why or why not.


5. Some people have claimed that all scientific investigations mustfollow the same general set of steps or method to be consideredscience. Others have claimed there are different general methods thatscientific investigations can follow.

(a) What do you think? Is there one scientific method or set of stepsthat all investigations must follow to be considered science?Circle one answer:

� Yes, there is one scientific method (set of steps) to science.� No, there is more than one scientific method to science.

If you answered “yes,” go to (b) below.If you answered “no,” go to (c) below.

(b) If you think there is one scientific method, what are the steps ofthis method?

(c) If you think that scientific investigations can follow more thanone method, describe two investigations that follow differentmethods. Explain how the methods differ and how they can stillbe considered scientific.

6.

(a) If several scientists, working independently, ask the samequestion (for example, they all want to find out what Oregonlooked like 10,000 years ago, or what the structure of a certainprotein is), will they necessarily come to the same conclusions?Explain why or why not.

(b) Does your response to (a) change if the scientists are workingtogether? Explain.

7.

(a) If several scientists, working independently, ask the samequestion and follow different procedures to collect data, willthey necessarily come to the same conclusions? Explain why orwhy not.

(b) Does your response to (a) change if the scientists are workingtogether? Explain.


8.

(a) What does the word “data” mean in science?(b) Is “data” the same or different from “evidence” ? Explain.

9.

(a) What is “data analysis” ?(b) What is involved in doing data analysis?

10. Students in a science class investigated the relationship between size andstrength of rubber bands. The strength of the rubber band was determinedby the amount of weight the rubber band could hold without breaking.The rubber bands differed only in length. Four groups of students testedsix different lengths of rubber bands (2 in., 3 in., 4 in., 5 in, 6 in., 7 in.) forrelative strength. For each group, the amount of weight a rubber bandcould hold increased with the length of the rubber band. Each groupstated their conclusions and reasons below. Evaluate their claims andexplain the strengths and weaknesses of each as scientific arguments.

(a) Conclusion: The larger rubber bands we tested are stronger thanthe smaller rubber bands we tested.

Evidence: The larger rubber bands held more weight.Is this a good scientific argument or not? Explain.

(b) Conclusion: The larger the rubber band we tested, the strongerthe rubber band was, compared to rubber bands of smaller size.

Evidence: The tests showed that, on the average, the larger therubber band, the more weight it could hold without breaking.Is this a good scientific argument or not? Explain.

(c) Conclusion: Larger rubber bands are stronger than smaller rubberbands.

Evidence: The small rubber bands didn’t hold much weight.Is this a good scientific argument or not? Explain.

(d) Conclusion: The larger the rubber band we tested, the strongerthe rubber band was.

Evidence: The larger rubber bands stretched a lot more.Is this a good scientific argument or not? Explain.


APPENDIX 2Inquiry Teaching Rubric

Essential Features of Classroom Inquiry and Their Variations (from NRC,2000, p. 29)

APPENDIX 3

Final Survey Questions

1. How do you feel your teaching of science changed since this time lastyear? Why?

2. Do you feel that you communicate science to your students differentlythan you did a year ago? Why?

Teacher_____________________Date_____________Observer_______________

Essential FeatureThese are the key features of inquiry

VariationsThe variations are different ways that the essential features might be expressed in student investigations. The observer will bold-face the variation that was most prevalent in the lesson

Comments

Learner engages in scientifically oriented questions

Learner poses a question

Learner selects among questions, poses new questions

Learner sharpens or clarifies question provided by teacher, materials, or other source

Learner engages in question provided by teacher, material, or other source

Learner gives priority to evidence in responding to questions

Learner determines what constitutes evidence and collects it

Learner directed to collect certain data

Learner given data and asked to analyze

Learner given data and told how to analyze

Learner formulates explanations from evidence

Learner formulates explanation after summarizing evidence

Learner guided in process of formulating explanations from evidence

Learner given possible ways to use evidence to formulate explanation

Learner provided with evidence

Learner connects explanations to scientific knowledge

Learner independentlyexamines other resources and forms the links to explanations

Learner directed toward areas and sources of scientific knowledge

Learner given possible connections

Learner communicates and justifies explanations

Learner forms reasonable and logical argument to communicate explanations

Learner coached in development of communication

Learner provided broad guidelines to sharpen communication

Learner given steps and procedures for communication

The variations differ in the amount of teacher guidance that is provided

More

Less

Amount of Learner Self-Direction

Amount of Direction from Teacher or Material

Less

More


3. Give specific examples of how you have incorporated more inquiry-based science into your teaching.

4. What are some of the problems you have encountered when doing this?5. What do you feel are the specific benefits to you and/or your students

of incorporating more inquiry-based science into your teaching?6. Generally list any ideas you have for providing support to your

colleagues in their process of implementing inquiry. How might youuse what you have accomplished in the past year to help other teachersincorporate inquiry into their science teaching?

7. What future plans do you have for incorporating inquiry into your ownteaching? What do you have left to work on? What are your futuregoals in this area?

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Washington State University Tri-Cities2710 Crimson Way, Richland, Washington 99354,Pullman, WA, USAE-mail: [email protected]


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