Harris - Memo #7

To start off, I just want to mention some interesting trends I saw while looking for articles about science inquiry education.  I came across many articles about teacher's attitudes and approaches towards inquiry learning.  It is an interesting topic to research, especially given the rollout of NGSS aligned curricula around the country that call for teachers to plan 5-E units and lessons. 

I was able to find research that addressed my overarching and sub-questions.  The articles come from a variety of education journals and use a variety of methods including teacher research, a case study, and empirical studies.  In terms of achievement, there is research that indicates that students who conduct the inquiry and investigations on their own have increases in achievement.  I was surprised by how much of the research dealt with specific aspects of inquiry science learning.  I will have to think about how to generalize from these more empirical papers and incorporate them into my literature review.  

Additionally, I was excited to see that some people have already explored the question of how gender dynamics can impact students' experiences of inquiry learning.  However, I have not yet found any literature that looks at other aspects of social dynamics besides gender in regards to inquiry learning.  The literature on gender proposed evidence that boys see more of a benefit of inquiry learning than girls.  

I also found a paper that focused on investigating specific teacher-student interactions during inquiry learning in science and what effect they had on student learning.  Reading this paper has made me rethink about what types of interactions I want to emphasize as a teacher during inquiry learning.  They specifically talk about what teacher-student interactions indicate to the students what is important to learn.  I'm looking forward to using this article to gain more resources on the topic.