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Inquiry based learning is one of the aspects that I included in my philosophy of teaching paper for student teaching. So when I saw the heading for this chapter I was really excited. The first thing that caught my attention was a quote, "children should be led to make their own investigations, and to draw upon their own inferences. they should be told as little as possible."
This chapter had more informations and terms rather than experiments which I think can be just as important to know. I also liked that they went through a guided inquiry lesson plan which is helpful when trying to understand how we would implement this inquiry thinking into our classrooms. I am excited to use inquiry learning in my own classroom

Thanks for your reflection; I find guided inquiry a good process too. Jill

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This chapter has very rich information.
One of my big takeaways is the expository- discovery continuum of teaching methodologies. When I was reading through all of the definitions and examples of expository methodology, guided inquiry methodology and free discovery methodology, I realized that I have never had clear understandings of teacher-directed and student-directed teaching methodologies. When I was student-teaching for my world language license, I thought that my lessons were always student-centered. However, they were somewhere in between which were more close to guided inquiry methodology.
Additionally, I appreciated the Figure 5.3 Descriptor of constructivist guided inquiry teaching performance. It is a very good self-assessment refrence for teachers, so we can check our own teaching and make improvements.

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I like how the author lays out the pros and cons of each methodology, and notes that new teachers usually move from expository to guided inquiry as they gain more experience and get to know their kids better. It seems like common sense that if kids are doing things for themselves that they will be more engaged, but I get the feeling that teaching hasn't always been about common sense. In any case, I'm glad that what we are learning is to allow kids more freedom than we had, so they will stay positive about their school experiences and become critical thinkers. We need to get them hooked on discovering things for themselves and drawing their own conclusions so they stay interested in not only science, but anything they choose to investigate.

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I really appreciated the breakdown of the different styles of teaching within a continuum, and how each approach has it's pros and cons. We will end up needing to do some expository teaching in order to build enough structure for students to work within, but there will also be plenty of opportunities for expository style work. What you wind up with in the middle is Guided Inquiry, where the teacher facilitates and leads, but the students are still the ones doing the work and inquiry.
One lesson might need to be moved closer to one side than another depending on the context and goal of the lesson.

Another take away for me was the idea that hands-on does not automatically mean that it is mentally engaging, but to be the most mentally engaging there does need to be a level of hands-on work. Lesson plans need to be carefully built with both deep guided inquiry, and physically active.

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My big takeaway from chapter five was that teachers need to relinquish their control over student learning. While this falls in line with most everything we learn at Hamline, it presents a great rationale for why we do it and how best to do it. Guided inquiry is a tremendous framework for ensuring that our students get to experience science, and that they formulate questions and conclusions in an evidence-based fashion. It may seem as though inquiry will occur organically in our rooms, and I suppose it will to a certain degree, but I think that we can provide the greatest benefit to our students by teaching them how to form conclusions based on what they observe and experience, and through discussion. If this was how every person in America was taught I believe that we'd have a much more critically minded society.

Also, I'd like to piggyback off of Joceline's post, thanks for bringing that up Joceline! As we're learning in class, the process is what is important as it's what leads to self discovery as well as all great society-impacting discoveries. It should be our goal to provide the roadmap to self reliance and critical problem solving for our students.

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I was really struck by the part of the chapter about ownership of knowledge. This line in particular: "As early as first grade, many children have learned to distrust their own thinking." Reading this made me so sad! I also identified with it though, because just taking this class I've been noticing how I tend to wait for instruction and second guess the ways that I investigate during the exploratory time (especially on the first day). I think this is largely due to the fact that my past educational experiences, particularly in science classes, have been heavily teacher-centered or expository in nature. All of this to say, I think process-oriented or inquiry-based teaching methods are critical. In addition to being (usually) more engaging, they encourage students to think autonomously, to be confident in themselves, and to be curious.

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One of the descriptors of inquiry teaching performance is that it "relates lesson to processes more than products." I think that this is really important. Science teachers out of all people should understand that sometimes the outcome of an experiment might not be what we hoped for because there might be unseen circumstances that we could not control. Like last week when we did the "rolling balls" experiment for example. We just have to improvise and focus on the processes rather than the outcome.

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The important aspects of the process-oriented guided inquiry learning approach I learned from chapter 5:

It is a student-centered learning approach in which students work in small groups to engage in guided inquiry. Implementing this approach needs to use carefully designed materials directing and guiding students to build and rebuild their scientific knowledge.

Implementing this approach, teacher is no longer the expert provider of knowledge, but rather guides students in the process of learning, in developing skills, and in developing their own understandings.

In my opinion, it is meaningful to use this approach in our classroom since the POGIL approach-based activities can encourage and foster a deep understanding of the lesson material while developing students’ higher-order thinking skills.

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1) Inquiry is not solely "hands on learning."
2) Inquiry is not a free-for-all.
3)Inquiry is not letting students do whatever they want.
I think it is important to stress these things of what it is not so that as a teach we are able to look at our own execution of this strategy and see if these are things that we are avoiding in our classroom.