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Inquiry-Based Learning Activities

Technology-enhanced inquiry-based learning activities de-emphasize instructor-led "chalk and talk" by enabling students to explore complex processes and datasets in computerized learning environments. The students must evaluate, synthesize, and analyze their own experiences, deriving insight and understanding through an iterative process of hypothesis-construction, testing, reflection, and revision.

Seminar

February 4, 2004
12:00 p.m.-1:30 p.m.
101 Walter Library

Moderator:

Richard Beach
Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education and Human Development, Twin Cities campus

Panelists:

David Levinson
Department of Civil Engineering, Institute of Technology, Twin Cities campus

Micky Trent
Department of Clinical and Population Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Twin Cities Campus

Nigel Wattrus
Geological Sciences, College of Science and Engineering, Duluth campus

At the seminar, the panelists discussed how they are developing and teaching with technology-enhanced inquiry-based learning activities.

Campus Projects

Panelists' Project Proposals

The panelists described the inquiry-based learning activities they are developing as part of the following TEL Grant Program projects:

Levinson, David. "Stimulating the Interaction of the Growth of Networks and Land Use" [2002-03 Technology-Enhanced Learning Grant Program proposal]. University of Minnesota, 2002. http://dmc.umn.edu/grants/2002/Levinson.pdf.

Trent, Micky, Jane Armstrong, and Jim Waddell. "An Interactive Case-Based Tool to Enhance Problem Solving and Content Integration Skill Development in Veterinary Education" [2002-03 Technology-Enhanced Learning Grant Program proposal]. University of Minnesota, 2002. http://dmc.umn.edu/grants/2002/Trent.pdf.

Wattrus, Nigel, and Howard Mooers. "Interactive GEOWALL Visualization Modules for Introductory Geology" [2002-03 Technology-Enhanced Learning Grant Program proposal]. University of Minnesota, 2002. http://dmc.umn.edu/grants/2002/Wattrus.pdf.

Exemplary Project Case Studies

Case studies of the panelists' projects are available in the Exemplary Projects section of our site:

Questions and Comments

About 28 people, including the moderator and panelists, attended the seminar. Participants discussed topics and asked questions such as the following.

Moderator's Comments

Moderator Richard Beach began by discussing one model of inquiry-based learning often used by instructors in English (one of the first fields to explore this type of learning). It frames learning around questions, hunches, or hypotheses called "passing theories." Learners invite others to help them try to verify these theories by gathering and posing further questions about relevant data; noting patterns, trends, or frequencies; and conducting inquiry projects in different social worlds.

Inquiry-based instructional methods are presented and discussed on the Inquiry Page Web site produced by the Inquiry Group, an evolving group of educators, learners, professionals, and community members from around the world. This site is itself designed to foster inquiry and community involvement by enabling members to discuss, vote, and make policies online.

Inquiry strategies include:

  • immersing oneself in a social world;
  • identifying concerns, issues, or dilemmas;
  • contextualizing an issue by investigating the purposes, roles, norms, beliefs, discourses, cultural models, or history of that world;
  • studying how that world is represented;
  • using the tools of narratives, genres, images, and the like to represent the world;
  • critiquing the representations; and
  • entertaining and proposing alternatives to status quo practices related to the issue.

Inquiry-based learning activities can be enhanced greatly by the use of new technologies which now enable us to more easily navigate and make sense of huge amounts of data. Students can use hypermedia to represent, critique, and transform different social worlds.

For example, as part of the Social Worlds Inquiry Curriculum, high school students combine photographs, music, video clips, and texts to represent their experiences with peers and to interpret short stories. Beach's college students also complete inquiry projects; last year they were about sense-of-place, and one student studied Blair, a small town with 500 people and 4 bars. The student found that each bar represented a different socioeconomic world, and she used Inspiration® software to represent them. In addition, in a hypermedia environment, students often use links for critical inquiry: to illustrate another text; to extend a text and illustrate shared meaning; and to question the meaning of a text.

Questions for Levinson

Can we access the simulation tool ourselves?

A prototype is available on Levinson's home page.

How have you embedded the simulation activity in the assignment?

For the first part of the assignment, students examine different network cases such as base, random speed, and uniform land use cases, then form a hypotheses and test it with the simulator, such as what happens when the average travel length changes.

Are you looking at mass transit systems such as light rail?

The network being simulated could be any kind travel network: bus, rail, car, etc.

What was the distribution of answers to the survey statement "the simulator enhances learning?"

On a 0 to 9 scale, the student response was 5.6, and the answers were normally distributed: there weren't 10 students who said one thing and 10 who said another.

Is there an overarching network theory for animals in a jungle, communication systems, the circulatory system, etc.?

Graph theory has been studied but how networks grow over time is a fairly new area of study stimulated by interest in how networks like the Internet grow. Different types of networks such as air transportation and communication networks function differently; they have different numbers of links and the links are organized differently, etc. The effects of different network geometries are being look at now.

Questions for Trent

Does the tool default to a healthy cow?

Yes, the first case in each section will be a healthy animal, then instructors can enter different data such as the cow has a fever.

How long would it take an instructor to add a case?

Assuming the initial healthy base case had been created, it would take about an hour.

Are veterinary laboratory tests reliable enough for instructors to discount the possibility that the laboratory staff made a mistake?

Most tests are reliable, but there are predictable sampling errors that the students can learn about and that instructors can factor in to their cases.

Questions for Wattrus

Can you make four-dimensional representations with the GeoWall?

Yes; you can create three-dimensional views over time or from different viewpoints.

Can the representations be rendered on a computer screen?

There is an immersive desk tool, but as an instructor you want to be able to have an entire class experience a representation at once.

Upcoming Event

Beach also announced that on May 24, a workshop on educational gaming will be held as part of the Classrooms of the Future X conference at Macalaster College; see the Humanities Institute Web site in a couple weeks for details.

Bibliography

Beach, Richard, and Jamie Myers, eds. Inquiry-Based English Instruction: Engaging Students in Life and Literature. New York: Teachers College Press, 2001.

Bruner, Jerome. Acts of Meaning. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press, 1990.

Dewey, John. Experience and Education. New York: Collier Books, 1963.

-----. How We Think. Lexington (MA): D. C. Heath, 1933.

-----. The School and Society. P.W. Jackson, ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.

Geowall Consortium. "GeoWall" home page. The Geowall Consortium, 2004. http://geowall.geo.lsa.umich.edu/.

Von Glasersfeld, Ernst. "Cognition, Construction of Knowledge, and Teaching." Synthese 80: 1989, 121Ð140. Scientific Reasoning Research Institute Web site. http://www.umass.edu/srri/vonGlasersfeld/onlinePapers/html/117.html.

Inquiry Group. "Inquiry Page." University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. http://www.inquiry.uiuc.edu/.

Myers, Jamie. "Social Worlds Inquiry Curriculum." Pennsylvania State University Department of Curriculum and Instruction. http://www.ed.psu.edu/k-12/socialworlds/.

Slavin, Robert E. "When Does Cooperative Learning Increase Student Achievement?" Psychological Bulletin 94: 1983, 429Ð445.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Inquiry Group. "The Inquiry Page." http://www.inquiry.uiuc.edu/index.php.

Vygotsky, Lev S. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press, 1978.

Wells, Gordon. "Working with a Teacher in the Zone of Proximal Development: Action Research on the Learning and Teaching of Science." Journal of the Society for Accelerative Learning and Teaching 18: 1993, 127-222. Also available at http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/~gwells/teacherzpd.txt.

Last modified Tuesday, 19-Jun-2007 15:42:48 CDT