Setting the tone: A discursive case study of problem-based inquiry learning to start a graduate statistics course for in-service teachers

Abstract

The first day of a course has great potential to set the tone for the entire course, planting the seeds for habits of mind and questioning and setting in motion expectations for classroom discourse. Rather than let the first meeting contain little besides going over the syllabus, the instructor (Lesser) decided to use two sustained open-ended scenarios to put in place from the start the problem-based inquiry learning approach he wanted to use throughout most of the course. After reviewing the literatures involved, this paper shares a description of the lesson's design and instructional cycle and a discourse analysis of that lesson's implementation. Strategies identified by the case study analysis include varying participation structures, well-crafted problems, and the instructor's role as facilitator and co-learner. © 2011 by Lawrence M. Lesser and Kerrie Kephart all rights reserved.