The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas Classroom Management for Successful Student Inquiry Classroom Successful Management for Student Inquiry Solving the Problems

Abstract

ISSN: 0009-8655 (Print) 1939-912X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vtch20 lassroom management is an important concern of C every teacher. Experience, however, indicates that this is especially true when a teacher is using inquiry-based activities (Jacobowitz 1997; Lawson 1995). Stu-dents focus on observations and cooperative group interactions (Lawson 1994; 1988). The teacher becomes a participant in the exploration rather than the focus of student attention. He or she moves from one group of students to another and must provide helpful suggestions or probing questions (Lawson, Abraham, and Renner 1989). To some this approach may appear to lead to a loss of order. In reality, however, good inquiry-based activities, when properly introduced, increase student interest and motivation, and that greatly reduces classroom control problems. Rather than a purveyor of information, the teacher is now a fellow investigator into interesting questions and phenomena (Lawson, Abraham, and Renner 1989). Student motivation shifts from an extrin-sic desire for a good grade, which only some students view as possible or even desirable, to an intrinsic one of satisfying a curiosity about nature (Lawson 2000). Even so, in implementing the National Science Edu-cation Standards, we have found that many teachers encounter classroom management problems in inquiry teaching. In this article we will briefly describe some of these problems and suggest some ways to avoid them or reduce their severity. It is extremely important that a teacher develop techniques that allow the effective implementation of inquiry-based activities. Identifying Classroom Management Problems During a recent semester, we asked a group of middle school teachers to generate a list of common classroom management problems they experienced while imple-menting inquiry lessons. They then ranked each prob-lem in terms of its severity (not a problem, slight problem, moderate problem, serious problem, or very serious problem). We show these classroom management concerns and their average ranking in severity in appendix A. We then asked the teachers to consider each in turn and suggest ways to overcome them.