How to open inquiry teaching? An alternative teaching scaffold to foster students' inquiry skills

Abstract

Students are expected to learn scientific inquiry. It consists of several individual processes that need to be coordinated. Recent teaching concepts have suggested fading students into a limited set of interconnected processes, mostly using backwards-fading techniques. The efficiency of open approaches to learning has been criticized repeatedly in science education research. Following a brief discussion of previous scaffolded inquiry teaching concepts developing students into "open inquiry", it is argued that these have been interpreted too strictly in science classrooms: (i) restricting inquiry to too few processes; (ii) delivering support to students in an all-or-nothing fashion; (iii) understanding opening of inquiry as a one-way-street insensitive to needs of momentary closing. This is not justified by the situated character of pedagogical considerations that depend on learners' needs and potentials, teachers' strengths and insecurities, and potential constraints from content. An alternative matrix for teaching inquiry is suggested that distinguishes five processes in four variations of openness. An example from chemistry shows that the achieved degree of openness is derived from situated considerations and is not ruled by a priori decisions on openness. Nor is this decision governed by faithfully adhering to a schematic sequence (confirmatory → structured → guided → open inquiry).