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1. Design of inquiry-based activities in science

Question-Evidence-Explanation-Connections-Communication aligns quite closely with true science as it is practised out there

Extent of student self-direction and guidance from teacher lies on a slider which can be moved to the left or right depending on factors like readiness level, etc.

For higher-readiness learners, can consider giving a list of inquiry questions and getting them to choose/tweak to their liking

SLS is a convenient platform for IBL - other useful ICT tools include Jamboard (for brainstorming and teacher feedback) and Gimkit (for students to create MCQs that will be assigned to the whole class in Kahoot or some other quiz platform)

It will be worthwhile to generate a pool of authentic scenarios that you can easily deploy once you become a full-fledged teacher

Iterative learning can be facilitated by modifying experimental procedures for future lessons

2. Overcoming practical challenges of implementing inquiry-based activities in regular school curriculum

If only given a 1-hour lesson, it is more practical to give a defined inquiry question from the get-go rather than getting students to pick/devise their own question

ALWAYS CONSIDER SAFETY OF STUDENTS IF ALLOWING THEM TO GO OUT OF CLASSROOM TO CONDUCT EXPERIMENTS

3. Questions on IBL

How often should IBL lessons take place in a year?

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1. When designing an inquiry based activities, we will have to first be clear with our learning objectives. This is to ensure that the activity is aligned with the learning outcomes. While designing and facilitating the activity, we have to take into account students' readiness and design accordingly. Activities can be conducted either student-directed or teacher-directed. Scaffoldings are to be provided accordingly. Teacher to provide the necessary resources to aid students' research. In addition, feedback and assessment have to curated accordingly to the learning objectives.

2. Certain activities were conducted via SLS, allowing students to engage in these activities after lesson hours. In addition, teacher conducted the lesson on a 1.5h period. Lesson was segregated into 3 portions, in which lesson can be conducted while students wait for their results. This maximises curriculum time and ensure students were engaged in the out-of-classroom activities.

3. Should assessment be tied along with IBL?

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IBL is a constructive approach in learning where students take an active role in learning. It is an iterative process which can be more student-directed or scaffolded depending on the learner profile.

A teacher can be an effective facilitator of IBL by (1) making use of authentic scenarios (e.g. survival) to spark curiosity and activate students' thinking, (2) providing timely feedback to students' responses (e.g. great explanation, please test this hypothesis) and (3) clarifying misconceptions that surface by providing clear explanations (e.g. transpiration pull vs. osmosis).

In the video, one of the challenges encountered was that students were not able to collect much water from their setup. The teacher provided an online template for students to reflect upon their experimental design and construct an improved approach to increase the amount of water collected.

I have personally observed such an IBL enacted in my contract school for a low readiness student profile and noticed that there was a lot of student interest but also off-task behaviour. How can IBLs be designed to encourage on-task participation?

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1)
Inquiry-based learning is not just for building skills but for teaching students about the nature of science, and the values and ethics behind scientific thinking. There are five key features, question, evidence, explanation, connection and communication. These features can be scaffolded to allow more teacher guidance and less student-directed learning or vice versa. Inquiry-based learning also does not need to take up too much time, can be done in a lesson. The key idea is to allow students the opportunity to learn in such a manner.

2)
She used SLS to conduct her IBL, which I think makes the process quite convenient for students as all the resources will be on one platform.  She used jam board for discussion, which allowed students with varying learning styles to contribute. She also took advantage of the school compound with the plants available, to keep the experiment location convenient. In concluding the IBL, she linked it back to lesson objectives in the syllabus. Thus, keeping students on track for national exams. She also allowed students to work on the IBL experiment outside of lesson time, thus limiting the lesson time spent on IBL.

3)
How to ensure that students really develop scientific practices and values?

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What have I learned about IBL?
- goal is to help students learn scientific thinking
- extent of student self-direction and teacher guidance can vary based on time and student competence
- important to set ground rules for safety

How to overcome practical challenges
- tools like SLS to make planning IBL easier
- using Jamboard to give students a space to collaborate and receive feedback beyond classroom periods
- ask students to do outside of curriculum time haha

Questions
- how to encourage participation from all group members instead of having a few "tankers"? (task-level participation, not just being time keeper)

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I learnt about the spectrum of different aspects of an inquiry-based lesson and how it can be designed to be more student-centric or teacher-centric. Through the use of ICT and SLS, the teacher was able to overcome many of the challenges. However I am curious as to the feasibility and frequency that such lessons can be enacted within the constraints of the curriculum as they seem to take up more time to cover the same objectives compared to more didactic approaches.

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1) The design of inquiry-based activities involves 5 essential features, that is Question, Evidence, Explanation, Connections, and Communication. When determining the extent of guidance that we provide to the students depends on student competencies, skill set, and the amount of time that we have.

2) The use of ICT tools allow students to take their work offline. Students also conduct the second experiment by themselves on days when there are no science lesson. This allows the teacher to save time and consolidate their learnings in the subsequent lesson.

3) How often should IBL take place given the amount of effort and time needed to plan, facilitate, and conduct IBL

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1. 5 features of inquiry-based learning (questions, evidence, explanation, connection, communicate) and the spectrum of student self-direction.

2. Using of SLS and a lot of ICT tools, students can work on their project collaboratively and outside classroom period.

3. For such elaborated IBL that spans over a few lessons, is it a teacher-initiated activity, or is it a school-based one? Is it a WA?

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1. Inquiry-based activities need not be of a complicated topic or outside of what's taught in the syllabus. It can be of something simple which requires students to plan their solutions, conduct their experiments, and explain the results obtained.

Inquiry-based activities can be conducted via SLS, which was something new that I didn't know can be done on SLS.

2. To save time during curriculum hours, teacher can provide guiding questions for students to plan their solution and experiments as homework. During the experiment itself, it need not take the whole lesson but instead split the lesson into small parts where the first half can be used to conduct experiment and the second half for normal curriculum.

Scenario used can also be something common where the solution / experiment can be conducted in school in a safe environment

3. How will the nature / progress of IBL change when it is conducted with a low- to middle-readiness class as compared to a high-readiness class?

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There are 5 essential features of an inquiry-based lesson and not all features have to be present at the same time for it to be considered an inquiry-based activity. A big challenge of inquiry-based activity is time constraint and to address that, the inquiry activity can be more guided rather than leaving it open (e.g. providing question for the student).

The biology teacher used several ICT platforms to plan and execute her inquiry-based lesson, including SLS, Jamboard and website links that provide more information for students who require them.

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1. Design of IBL activities in science
- Important to teach students not only the skillsets to think like scientists, but also the attitudes of scientists, where it is okay to try different methods and fail sometimes.

- 5 essential features of IBL activities (question, evidence, explanation, connection, communication) and these features can be tweaked to become more teacher guided or student centred.

- Many ICT tools and platforms were also utilised in the design of this IBL activity such as SLS and Gimkit

2. How did the Bio teacher overcome challenges
- Used a lot of ICT tools and student directed learning outside of classroom time, where students can work in groups to discuss about their project after regular schooling hours.

3. Other questions
- How "open" should the answer towards the IBL activity be?
- How often should we aim to implement such activities in our curriculum?

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Design of inquiry-based activities in Science:
Make it fun (Let students have autonomy)
Make it engaging (Not just collect data based on teacher demo)
Make it relevant (Make it tangible for students, e.g. making water when on a desert island)

Practical challenges:
Safety (appropriate briefing)
SLS (lesson packages provide good source of scaffolding)
Time constraints (do majority online)

Questions:
How to do IBL for more abstract concepts in chemistry?

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1. Design of inquiry-based activities in science
- Five essential features of science as inquiry [Question, Evidence, Explanation, Connections, Communications]

- The extent of student self-direction and teacher guidance depends on what the teacher aims to develop in the students.

- Teachers serve as facilitators of learning to ensure that learning objectives are met. ICT platforms and tools like SLS and Jamboard can be used to facilitate IBL. Teacher can give real-time feedback to students through the interactive thinking tool (ITT) in SLS.

2. Overcoming challenges
- Leveraging on the ICT tools for students to work offline outside of classroom so students can work in groups to discuss on their project.

3. Question
- How can we most effectively conduct IBL for lower-readiness students who require more scaffolding or engage in more off-task behaviours?

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I learnt that there are 5 essential features of an inquiry-based lesson, namely

Question

Evidence

Explanation

Connections

Communications

and these features lie on the spectrum of teacher guided vs student guided learning.

IBL lessons can be modified by on student competencies, skill sets and time available.

The biology teacher utilised the SLS template, and many ICT tools which helped to make thinking visible, as well as a record of their thinking. However I was thinking if it would be better to provide them with a worksheet so that they can refer to it during revision instead of have information all over SLS

I was thinking of how she manage to conduct this activity, is it a 30 mins per 1 hr lesson, or she dedicated a few full lessons to it.

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1. The essential features of IBL are the question, evidence, explanation, connections, communication. Teachers need to use our judgement in deciding the extent of student self-direction and the guidance provided from teacher or materials. We also need to be aware that developing competency in these skills takes place over time. For a start and to empower students, the teacher can give a set of questions that students can choose to inquire on.

2. The biology teacher leveraged SLS and google jam board etc.
to sequence the different components into one platform. This helps to scaffold
the inquiry-based processes for students as they progress through the different
steps and continually refine their methods based on feedback and identification
of gaps.

3. Should IBL be coherently planned across their 4/5 years in secondary school so that there is progression and improvement as they acquire greater content and competencies instead of each subject or level department planning in silo.

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1. Teachers should think about the 5 features of IBL (questions, evidence, explanation, connection, communication) when designing activities. They should also consider how much direction/guidance they give students by taking into account the difficulty of the activity and how ready their students are.

2. Usage of SLS can be very effective, as well as other online ICT tools such as Padlet etc. This can allow for students to continuously collaborate and share ideas.

3. How do we sustain students interest in an IBL activity, especially if it is one that extends over a long time?

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What I’ve learnt about IBL:

It is indeed important to have students to apply their knowledge to solve problems that are related to their daily lives, they will see the relevance and this gives them a platform to develop their ways of thinking and doings science.

That being said, an important point was raised in the first half of the video, which is to consider the time that you have. IBL is fun, engaging and meaningful to students, but it is also time-consuming. Need to think of student readiness too, they might not be meaningfully engaged in the activity if they are of lower readiness (either off-task or not following procedures/instructions).

How did the bio teacher overcome practical challenges:

As mentioned earlier regarding the time allocated, more scaffolding can be given to them. This means less student self-direction, but it doesn’t mean that the activity is meaningless to conduct.

Questions that I have about IBL:

What are some considerations/advice you have for preparing IBL for students of lower-readiness?

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1. I have learned that before planning an inquiry based lesson, it would be good to ask myself what I want my students to learn based on their current skillsets. This will allow me to plan for an appropriate amount of scaffolding for the activity

2. The teacher made use of online learning to overcome the challenge of lack of classroom time to complete the whole activity

3. I'm wondering whether having too many online segments to overcome the challenge of lack of classroom time would be a problem for students. Now schools have regular HBL lessons but for my contract school not all subjects have HBL time allocated. On top of that, timetables have been stretched longer so students' days end later now. Would having many more online take-home activities be too much work for students?

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Science as an inquiry based lesson have 5 key features: question, evidence, explanation, connections, communications. The amount of guidance provided by teacher depends on the student profiles.

Use of ICT tools such as Jam board, SLS. Teacher gives student autonomy on how they want to display their thought processes, teacher gives feedback on why they chose certain variables (challenge student's thoughts). Teacher provides resources and links in SLS to aid students. Assign roles to members in the group to ensure that students are on tasks.