Inquiry in the Classroom

Book excerpt: The goal of this text is to help you navigate the complex landscape that is inquiry in the science classroom. We focus on inquiry teaching, its various forms and what factors influence its integration into a classroom. We invite you to develop and refine your definitions about scientific inquiry and explore how inquiry might be used to support the success of your students. The introduction will include various definitions of inquiry offered in the research literature accompanied by what we see as useful ways to conceptualize the broad practices that comprise inquiry in the classroom. Following the introduction the six sections of the book each explore factors that influence the use of inquiry in the classroom. Each section begins with one (or more) vignette--snippets of science classrooms. The authors discuss how this vignette demonstrates some aspect of the specific dimension that they are charged with discussing. Because inquiry is so multifaceted and its portrayals are often complex and nuanced, the discussion of the dimension is broken into separate essays-- each of which addresses the focal dimension in different ways. Following the essay, a broader discussion across the essays is offered to support your understanding of inquiry.