The interlace project: Examining the barriers to implementing collaborative, inquiry-based investigations

Abstract

A growing body of research suggests that inquiry-based pedagogical practices can greatly enhance a student's learning experience in a science/engineering classroom. However, this approach is not widely employed owing to the fact that it is often challenging and time-consuming. To address this problem and to promote cyber-learning strategies that enhance STEM education, the Interactive Learning and Collaboration Environment, or InterLACE, Project is designing, developing, and testing an online collaborative education environment that assists teachers in presenting design-based inquiry lessons to their high school science/engineering classes and motivates students to take a more active role in the learning process. As we construct the blueprint for InterLACE's suite of technological tools, we have conducted design discussions among and classroom observations of the teachers we chose for our Design Team to identify the obstacles that stand in the way of design-based inquiry learning, not only from their perspective but from the students' viewpoint as well. To inform the collaborative aspect of the ways in which our software can support such lessons within the classroom community, we want to examine how shared meanings are built and collective comprehension is reached through various interactions between the teacher and the students and among the students themselves, with an eye toward fostering collaboration across student groups in furtherance of a class-wide goal. By gathering and analyzing such data, our aims are twofold: (1) to create a superior suite of technological tools that can advance science/engineering education in the high school classroom; and (2) to increase the appreciation of the epistemological benefits and drawbacks of collaborative, design-based inquiry learning with regard to science/engineering education. This paper specifically presents data collected in the fall of 2011 concerning the barriers to meaningful, collaborative design-based inquiry practices that we observed and were reported to us by our Design Team, plus additional data collected in the winter of 2012 regarding the first tool we have created in response to some of these obstacles. © 2012 American Society for Engineering Education.