Scaffolding the Development of an Inquiry-Based (Science) Classroom

Abstract

Over the last five years, we have supported the development and implementation of LBD units by almost 25 teachers. All implementations have taken place in public schools, and we have made sure that the implementations included a wide range of settings (urban, suburban and near-rural communities; schools with large, medium, and small racial minorities; student populations with high, medium, and low income; large and small school districts, classes of normal, at-risk, and gifted students; new and experienced teachers, and working both with teachers who have experience with inquiry-based teaching and those who do not and with teachers who have strong background in the subject matter of the curriculum and those who do not). We have used many methods to evaluate the success of the curriculum (see Fasse & Kolodner, 2000), including frequent discussions with implementing teachers and their supervisors, ethnographic observations in the classrooms (Gertzman & Kolodner, 1996, Hmelo et al., 2000), student surveys and interviews, analysis of the development of student's metacognitive skills and science thinking (Puntambekar & Kolodner, 1998), assessment of student learning both through standardized test items in a pre/post-implementation design using matched comparison classes, and results from performance-based assessment tasks. These evaluations show that in LBD classes, students indeed learn the designated science as well as or better than their peers in traditional classes. Of more interest is that they also learn science process skills, collaboration, communication, and planning skills exceeding those of their peers (in preparation).

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