User:Smitty//articlecritiques//WHAT MAKES AN INQUIRY ORIENTED SCIENCE TEACHER

'''WHAT MAKES AN INQUIRY-ORIENTED SCIENCE TEACHER? THE INFLUENCE OF LEARNING HISTORIES ON STUDENT TEACHER ROLE IDENTITY AND PRACTICE'''

Brief Summary of Article

Charles Eick and Cynthia Reed provide important insight into the role that an individual’s life experience contributes to their acceptance of implementing structured inquiry in science classrooms. Their research focused “on the role that personal histories played in the formation of student teachers’ role identities as beginning teachers” (Eick &amp; Reed, 2002 p. 404), and whether or not these identities had any effect on the implementation “structured inquiry” (p. 404). Specifically their research sought to discover how personal “identities influenced the implementation of inquiry and its associated hands-on, minds-on practices” (p. 403).

Since “planning teaching inquiry-based lessons is difficult for beginning teachers” (Eick &amp; Reed, 2002 p. 402) implementing and maintaining these approaches as the student teacher enters the classroom is often problematic. The problem for beginning teachers is that “they often lack the supportive backgrounds and life experiences that facilitate the use of inquiry” (p. 402). Therefore, Eick and Reed believe that a science student teachers “prior knowledge and ideas must be assessed and addressed” (p. 402) so that appropriate constructivist practices may be employed in the teaching of secondary science.

The research was conducted over three consecutive quarters with the assistance of four student teachers each quarter who were completing their 10 week student teaching placements. Students who participated in the study were selected by two professors who ranked potential candidates. Only those students who were ranked high by both professors were invited to participate in the study. Of the 12 students who participated, 10 were female and two were male. All participants were of European American ancestry. Among the variables studied were how each science student teacher believed science was best learned and the frequency of their utilization of hands on activities, as well as the science subject which they were teaching (Eick &amp; Reed, 2002 p. 411). The research design utilized individual case studies. A weakness of the presentation of this research is that only two of the 12 case studies were presented in the article. The two case studies which were presented exhibited the greatest variation in “support of an inquiry identity for science teaching” (p. 405).

Value of the Article to the Field of Educational Planning

The research data supports “the assertion that it is not science teacher education alone that makes an inquiry-oriented teacher, but that a preservice teacher predispose[d] to inquiry-oriented teaching benefits most from science teacher education” (Eick &amp; Reed, 2002 p. 412). This research will prove to be helpful in developing programs of study for science student teacher education. One recommendation in particular which will prove beneficial is the “need to implement more supervised teaching experiences using structured inquiry before student teaching” (p. 413).

Perhaps the greatest contribution which this research will provide in the field of educational planning is its focus on the individual role identity of the student teacher. Individual role identities are the product of our educational experiences, individual learning histories, past experiences in school as well as our values and beliefs. Understanding a student teacher’s personal role identity will prove important in personalizing instruction. Such reflection is important because this research concurs with past studies which found that there are “‘strong influence[s] between teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning’ (Eick &amp; Reed, 2002 p. 410) because teachers tend to incorporate their own ‘preferred learning style… into their approach to teaching’” (p. 410).

 Value of the Article to My Development as an Educator

To be honest the personal value of this article was much less than originally anticipated after reading the abstract. One would expect research conducted at a large institution of higher learning such as Auburn University to utilize a much larger sample than only 12 science student teachers. There were two areas, however, which proved to be personally valuable. First, the statement made by the researchers that those teachers who have difficulty incorporating inquiry based learning view their role of teacher “as [being] a ‘receiver’ of knowledge and not a ‘constructor’ of knowledge” (p. 412) was particularly insightful. This realization goes to the heart of the issue in implementing inquiry-based methods among those who favor more traditional approaches. Philosophy is important to teaching. While few people are able to articulate their philosophy most teachers behave in a manner representative of their personal philosophy. Second, this research article introduced the concept of structured inquiry in science education. At Auburn we do not emphasize the use of open-ended inquiry where students pursue their own questions and investigations over time. Structured inquiry involves the lesson at hand and includes such activities as observing and describing natural phenomenon, exploring discrepant events, or gathering data on a guided question (Eick &amp; Reed, 2002 p. 404). Until reading this article, this author understood the utilization of inquiry-based methods to be an all or nothing proposition. Since “there is no complete and perfect theory of education” (Henson, 2010 p.163) Auburn’s moderated approach to inquiry-based methods seems appropriate and refreshing.

Ideas for New Research Relative to Educational Planning Generated by This Article

While Eick and Reed (2002) do not list any areas for further research it seems self-evident that more research needs to be done into how students and teachers of varying learning styles learn science and other subject matter. Is the learning style of the teacher so prevalent that he/she may not overcome it? Should teachers and students be paired based on learning style instead of subject matter? Determining what balance, if any, should exist between more traditional approaches to teaching science and inquiry-based methods should also be examined. It would appear logical that some standards in the science curriculum will be more profitably taught using inquiry-based methods, and that other standards are better presented through more traditional means.