Use a Process-of-Inquiry to

Teach Principles-for-Inquiry

 

by Craig Rusbult, PhD  — craigru178-att-yahoo-daut-caum

For 3 years, I led Round Table Discussions at the California STEM Symposium:

in 2014 – Build Bridges between Engineering and Science to Improve NGSS Practices – which then was updated...

in 2015 – How to Improve Diversity and Equity with Transfer-Bridges [and Transition-Bridges] for Problem Solving ;

in 2016 – After writing a description for the program, I discovered that one of my favorite parts of the experience was
my own discoveries of deeper insights about functional relationships between actions in 4 Ways to Use Experiments.

 

 Use a Process-of-Inquiry to Teach Principles-for-Inquiry 

 Learn how to ask Science Questions and Engineering Questions that stimulate students’ metacognitive reflections [about their thinking & actions, about what they are doing, when, how, and why] before, during, and after inquiry activities.  Guide the process-of-inquiry to help students discover principles-for-inquiry [e.g., how we use experiments to make Information & critically Evaluate Ideas & creatively Generate Ideas] that improve their design thinking (problem solving) skills in all areas of life.     { This was my condensed description for the program, with [comments in brackets] added later. }

 

To help you learn more about the WHAT-and-HOW of helping students discover Principles for Inquiry, I made a one-page handout (in color or grayscale) for the discussion, and I've written...

    "more about the [handout's] ideas," especially using experiments,
     and "other ideas [not in the handout]" about asking questions.
 

My 1-page handout and "Designing Instruction - Part 1" (in the left-side page when you click the link for "more") describe a two-part process of Designing Goal-Directed Instruction:

 

How can you design instruction that will help students learn more effectively, with more fun?  This is a problem (it's an opportunity to “make it better”) that you can solve with Design Thinking.

In one useful problem-solving approach — in a Designing of Goal-Directed Instruction — you:

    1. Define GOALS for desired outcomes, for the ideas & skills you want students to learn;
    2. Design INSTRUCTION with Learning Activities that will provide opportunities for experience with these ideas & skills, and (typically in mini-Activities with guiding by a teacher)* will help students learn more from their experiences.     {* A common mini-activity is asking QUESTIONS that direct a student's attention to “what can be learned” from an experience.}
 

Basically, Step #1 is about WHAT to Teach, and #2 is HOW to Teach.

 


 

Craig Rusbult <craigru178@yahoo.com>

bio-page: my life on a road less traveled

In twitter, I'm @DTprocess (where DT means DesignThinking) and I participate in a community of educators who are enthusiastic about DT – #DTk12chat (schedule) – so I like the conference theme of Designing our Future.