探究式教學的課室規範形成之初探

Developing inquiry abilities is one significant core ability emphasized in the 12-year curriculum for Basic Education in the domain of Sciences. With the implementation of a new subject named Inquiry and Practice-based Learning, more opportunities are created so that students can develop inquiry abilities through participating scientific inquiry and problem solving. The study argues that to successfully promote scientific practices, it is critical to engage students in inquiry-based conversations. Specifically, the study explored how teacher used discourse and arranged classroom interactions to shape different types of classroom norms and discussed how the norms may be consequential for inquiry and conceptual learning. A qualitative case study methodology was adopted. Data were generated from videotaping a semester-long, two Grade 10 science classrooms. One is Mr. Chen’s earth science course, and the other is Ms. Lin’s biology course. A two-dimension framework (guidance and cognitive dimensions) modified from previous research formed the basis of the discourse analysis. The analysis showed that the semester-long science lessons presented a spectrum of classroom inquiry. The teacher integrated a variety of communicative approaches to engage students in inquiry-based conversations. Three typical classroom norms were identified. The first is the explicit inquiry-oriented classroom norm. The establishment of the norm started with a question explicitly related to the process of inquiry, such as what evidence you used to support the reasons. Students discussed these questions in groups. Then, the representative students expressed group ideas, and a whole-class discussion approach was adopted to guide and refine students’ explanations. With the second norm, the teacher engaged the students in role-play and required them to perform their understandings using body languages. For example, the students were assigned to be the twelve zodiac constellations and the earth. Then, through whole-class discussions, the students were asked to “play” the movements of the celestial bodies and to make meaning of the concept of diurnal motion. The third classroom norm highlighted conceptual understandings. Usually, the teacher intertwined a short whole-class instruction with whole-class discussions or Q&A using I-R-F-R-F-… pattern to guide, scaffold, and refine the students’ understandings. The framework developed in the study helped understand and characterize inquiry classroom norms. The findings provide useful suggestions about how to integrate different communicative approaches to establish a culture of inquiry over time in a normal science classroom setting. Moreover, they disclose constraints and possibilities to establish classroom inquiry in everyday science lessons and raise significant issues about how to redesign science learning environments that can best provide reciprocal benefits of conceptual learning and epistemic learning.