Running head: SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY JOURNAL ARTICLE

Scientific Inquiry Journal Article Bryan L. Robinson Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana

SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY JOURNAL ARTICLE My understanding of Scientific Inquiry is the process of questioning, making a claim, collecting evidence, and the ability to defend results with newly attained knowledge. Inquiry based education is a process that is taken from the actual process that is commonly use in the scientific community. The focus of this method of teaching is student centered education with science rhetoric the focuses on science concepts, verses regurgitated information. Most importantly the inquiry method builds on knowledge already acquired and builds upon foundations and framework previously laid. Students will soon find that this method of teaching is fun, exciting, innovative and personal. The discoveries that will be made will be lifelong knowledge that they will almost never forget. Students will quickly learn that scientific inquiry could begin an interesting cycle of questions and wonders. In my experience from this semester, if it werent for limited resources and time I would still be working on a few projects. With Inquiry students will find themselves drawn into an intense cycle of curiosity.

In the classroom students should take advantage of every available moment to explore as much as possible. Developing strong interpersonal relationships with their peers is advised, because it is a very major component in this method of instruction which encourages group work, collaboration and negotiation. In comparison, according to the article, Authentic Scientific Inquiry and School Science, written by Dr. Anne Hume, who took the concept of Scientific Inquiry and compared it to several teachers and their approach to this pedagogy and came up with a final conclusion, after compiling all the data that she had collected. Dr. Hume refers to scientific inquiry as authentic scientific inquiry. The definition that she presented was after a study that she conducted among sixteen science teachers and their approach to the method of inquiry based education.

SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY JOURNAL ARTICLE The findings were agreed upon by the educators that contributed to this study and define

inquiry as the doing of science in a way that emulates the practice of real scientist. It is a social practice that involves investigating, interpreting, and justifying the inquiry approach in order to build solid explanations about the world around us. With the use of reductionism is the framework that determines the approach that data, classifications, and variables are manipulated in the effort to understand patterns, and connections to formulate general laws. In the process the focus is on first obtaining a control, then duplication in order to isolate from the variables from its natural state. In the classroom students that participate in the inquiry process of learning, should cultivate an understanding and involve in projects that the outcome invokes an intense learning experience that require sincere investigation. The solution to the experiment should be challenging and not obvious. The students should develop their own open-ended question; draw from their existing science experiences; plan an approach to solving for the solution to their open-ended question; participate in their procedures; gather information and data to analyze, interpret, observe, and evaluate to develop a solution; then finally communicate their results in some manner, as the article states (Dr, 2009). My personal view of scientific inquiry, through this assignment, has not changed. If it has changed I would have to truthfully say, that my view was only affirmed and developed more of an excitement to practice this method. The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) defines scientific inquiry as a, diverse ways in which scientist study the natural work and propose explanations based on evidence derived from their work, it goes on to say, Scientific Inquiry also refers to the

SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY JOURNAL ARTICLE activities through which students develop knowledge and understanding if scientific ideas, as well as understanding of how scientist study the natural world, (Offical Position, 2004). From this I have learned that the definition of scientific inquiry is the same with the NSTAs definition compared to my understanding and with the article I evaluated. From the article I did learn that educators to have opposing viewpoints concerning the components of this method of instruction; but all agree that is was an effective way to innovate the learning experience.