What does a research based classroom look like? blog 3

I am exploring what a research based classroom looks like and have already discussed the topics of guided questioning and the process of interaction within the classroom.  I have introduced the website by Wilfred Fanklin located here.  Near the bottom of the website Franklin addresses how to put the inquiry based classroom into practice.  The key is three important factors:  risk, trust, and power (Hubbard 2001).

The teacher is taking a risk in moving to a guided inquiry classroom.  The risk is tied closely to the power component as the teacher is no longer going to dictate the content through lecture.  The teacher must be flexible enough to take the risk of turning the content over to the students.  The teacher must trust the students to give meaningful answers to move the class forward.  That being said, the teacher will still have control of the class by guiding the questions, but the teacher does not have the same authority over the content that they do in a lecture based classroom.  The students may want to go in a different direction than the teacher planned and the teacher needs to be able to mold the new direction into the same classroom goal.

For example, if the content is understanding that the surface of the earth changes over time and the teacher starts by asking the question:  how has the surface of the earth changed over time?  The students may go the melting of the polar ice caps because they saw it on television while the lesson that the teacher planned had to do with soil erosion.  The teacher can continue to ask open ended questions regarding the polar ice caps until the students reach an area that can apply to soil erosion as well.  Then the teacher can ask:  other than the polar ice caps, what other areas of the earth's surface has changed?  The conversation that the students had regarding the polar ice caps is still beneficial as they are actively thinking about how the earth's surface changes.  Going down this path does involve risk as there are only so many hours in the classroom each day.  If the students get sidetracked or off topic, the teacher needs to make the students feel that their conversations are meaningful while the teacher guides the class back on task.

Risk, trust, and power are three of the reasons why teachers do not move towards an inquiry based classroom.  Existing teachers know that if they lecture and practice skills, the class will move forward on time.  The problem is that the students are not truly learning, rather they are recycling facts and basic skills without really understanding why they are important.  Knowing that teachers will be taking a risk, turning the power over to the students, and trusting the students to have meaningful discussions are all aspects that need to be carefully considered before a teacher moves to the inquiry based classroom.  By creating a detailed plan on how this change will take place and how the teacher will keep the class on task, the transition from a lecture based classroom to an inquiry based classroom can be successful.

Source:  http://www.brynmawr.edu/biology/franklin/InquiryBasedScience.html