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Running head: SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY JOURNAL ARTICLE ASSIGNMENT

Scientific Inquiry Journal Article Assignment

Tracy Appleget
Ivy Tech Community College

SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY JOURNAL ARTICLE ASSIGNMENT

Before coming to this class I thought of inquiry as no more than teaching studnets to look
for questions and answer them. I thought that there will be a correct answer to each and every
question. I thought of the inquiry practice as a worksheet. I, as a teacher, would ask questions,
my students were to answer those questions. As we are reading and from classroom discussions
I am seeing that as a teacher I would better serve my students as a guide. I myself will go on a
trip of discovery with my students.
In our class we have had much discussion about Big Ideas and creating plans to help
our students discovery the big idea. I have learned so far how a vocabulary list can help guide
my students in the direction that I would like them to go. Before the exercise this past week I
completely disliked vocabulary lists. I saw them as unwanted homework. Now I see how we
can use a vocabulary list to help guide students. When I think of inquiry now I feel that it is not
my job to give students the correct answers, in fact it is my job to guide students. I want to spark
interest in the students. I have noticed that if a student is interested in and asks questions the
more likely they are to learn.
What students need to know about inquiry is that it is process. It is process to look for
answers. It is the student that needs to ask why, how and when. It is the students responsibility
to give explanations to questions. When a student is able to explain, his or her understanding of
a particular subject can be determined.
Students should use inquiry in the classroom to deepen understanding. Students should
look for answers and not take the answers that a teacher gives them. Students should question
ideas.

SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY JOURNAL ARTICLE ASSIGNMENT

In the article that I have chosen to read by Clinton Golding. The teacher is described a
guide. Not only were the words guide used but a type of guide. The term expedition-educator
was used to describe the type of teacher one should be. Golding goes on to say that leading
learners does not help them learn. He states that leading the student to the correct answer only
solves the immediate problem.
The article shows that the problem with inquiry teaching is the struggle that it presents.
There needs be a line drawn. The teacher can guide the students to go were the inquiry goes for
themselves. The teachers proper role cannot be that of a guide keeping his party from the
wrong paths and accidents. Nor yet is he a guide going in the lead while his party simply fool in
the expectation that this will prepare them to find the same path later by themselves.(Golding,
2013, p.91)
What this quote means to me is that a teacher is to scaffold the students. The students left
unattended may or may not get on the right path. The unknowing of the correct answer may lead
a student unwilling to go on by themselves.
The article deems the teacher as a tour leader. In this experiment the teacher aims the
students down paths that are pre-determined. The article describes this way as reading a story to
the students. The reader has no choice on where he or she is going. The article also states that
the reader in this may only participate at a minimal level. With this type of teacher lead
instruction the students may understand the information more than regular instruction. Yet in
this type of instruction the students would become dependent on the teacher to lead them to the
correct outcomes.
In true inquiry the teacher lets the inquiry lead itself. Follow were the inquiry leads you.
Therefore the students need to understand that they need to follow the inquiry. Earlier, I

SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY JOURNAL ARTICLE ASSIGNMENT

mentioned that the article referred to the inquiry teacher as an expedition-educator. In this
type of inquiry the teacher and the students are a trip together. Were no path has been
preselected. The teacher and the students do not have a planned agenda. This type of inquiry
does not substitute a student controlled agenda for a teacher controlled agenda that would be
abandoning the students, letting them do whatever they want, that is not inquiry. Instead there is
a co-inquiry. Nether the teacher not the students are in charge. They follow the inquiry together.
Here true inquiry happens when the teacher always the students to follow the path that
their inquiry leads them. The teacher may overrule to point the students in the right direction if
the teacher sees the line of inquiry they have chosen will not promote autonomous inquiry.
What I see now by reading this article is that my idea of inquiry although close, was not
true inquiry. I thought that the teacher would have the paths planned out. I thought the teacher
would want to know in advance what information the students were to take from this lesson.
National Science Teacher Association mission statement for Scientific Inquiry state that
the teacher needs to set goals. Both long term and short term goals are set. This is direct
contrast to the article. The article states that true inquiry is where there is no goal. I see were a
goal is needed. The mission statement issued by the National Science teacher Association is
more structured in its approach to scientific inquiry than the article. The article describe a lesson
in which there was no path laid out. The students and the teacher were to follow the inquiry.
Yet even though there is a difference I can see what the article was saying. The article
stated that to be true inquiry the students needed to explore with the teacher. Yes this would be a
type of inquiry but if no goals are set out then how can knowledge be tested. If the teacher has
no goal how can assessments be designed?

SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY JOURNAL ARTICLE ASSIGNMENT

Reference

Association, N. S. (n.d.). National Science Teacher position statement Scientific inquiry.

Retrieved from http://www.nsta.org/docs/PositionStatement_ScientificInquiry.pdf.

Golding, C. (2013). The teacher as guide: a conception of the inquiry teacher. Educational
Philosophy and Theroy, 45(1), 91-110.