Impediments to Inquiry-based Instruction

The purpose of this project is to help teacher candidates understand those factors arrayed against teaching via inquiry, and to effectively confront and resolve the surrounding issues.

Costensen and Lawson (1986) conducted interviews with in-service traditional biology teachers who were reticent to use inquiry-based instruction in the own classrooms. Costenson and Lawson identified ten major areas of concern as noted below.

Assignment: You and your classmates are all part of the "ISAAPT Ad Hoc Committee on Inquiry-Based Instruction." Your Committee has been charged with the task of providing a report (including a conference presentation and a written rationale) in favor of inquiry-based instruction that addresses the concerns enumerated below. It is your duty to cooperatively find solutions to each of the following problems presented by those who stand opposed to implementing inquiry instruction. You will begin by carefully weighing each teacher argument against the use of inquiry in the classroom, and come up with possible solutions for each. You will then prepare a presentation and write a parallel report that explains how each of the following concerns can be confronted and resolved:

  1. time and energy – It is difficult and time consuming to produce high quality inquiry lessons; it would be difficult to sustain the high level of energy required to use active learning.
  2. too slow – Inquiry takes more time than teaching by telling; the school curriculum requires coverage of broader spectrum of content than would be possible with inquiry.
  3. reading too difficult – Students have difficulty translating textbook knowledge into active inquiry.
  4. risk too high – The school administration would not support inquiry practice due to a lack of sufficient content coverage; the teacher might be perceived as not doing his or her job.
  5. tracking – Classrooms filled with lower-performing students would not contain the right type of population needed to conduct inquiry effectively.
  6. student immaturity – Students are too immature and would waste time in unstructured settings; they would not benefit from inquiry-oriented teaching.
  7. teaching habits – Established expository teaching habit are hard change after long periods of use; teacher might not have knowledge and skills required for inquiry teaching.
  8. sequential text – The textbook constitutes the curriculum; chapters cannot be skipped because too much important material is included in each.
  9. discomfort – It is uncomfortable not to be in control of the lesson, and being uncertain of the outcomes that might result from inquiry-oriented teaching is disturbing.
  10. too expensive – Inquiry requires active engagement, and many classrooms are not equipped with sufficient teaching materials suitable for active learning.
  11. Added to this list today could be high-stakes testing – Inquiry teaches those skills that are not addressed in such tests as the Prairie State Assessment Examination administered to every high school student in Illinois under the No Child Left Behind initiative.
  12. Also to be added to this list is the question of resistance to inquiry-oriented science instruction by students, parents, peer teachers, and the school administration. See Minimizing resistance to inquiry-oriented science instruction: The importance of climate setting for details.

Your group, or a representative of your group, will give a 30-minute, PowerPoint-mediated presentation to the "assembled body of the ISAAPT membership" to share your findings. The written report must also be delivered to the "Executive Council" at this time.

References:

Costenson, K. & Lawson, A.E. (1986). Why isn’t inquiry used in more classrooms? American Biology Teacher, 48(3), 150-158.

Wenning, C. (2005). Minimizing resistance to inquiry-oriented science instruction: The importance of climate setting. J. Phys. Tchr. Educ. Online, 3(2), 10-15.