Hello Practitioner!
The second task for this day is to write the idea about the cultural influence that affect our work or what we plan to improve.
I still focus on learning with inquiry approach, therefore I try to think about what affects how well the students learn science with inquiry in term of cultural influence.
I think it might be the feeling of thoughtfulness that Thai students are aware of the others when they express thier ideas whether that ideas affect the others both positive and negative ways.
In some cases, this situation lead to a silence classroon where no one would like to bring his or her idea into the discussion.
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I wrote the following essay to express my idea about the action plan beginning with the question: what do I want to improve?
1. What do I want to improve?
As a lecturer in Teaching Biology course, I would like to teach my students who are going to be biology teachers to plan and manage their classroom with inquiry approach, and change their belief about science teaching from didactic orientation to be inquiry orientation.
2. Why do I feel that something could be improved in what I am doing?
Because, sometime, it’s difficult to change pre-service teacher conceptions about scientific inquiry and change their belief about how to teach science effectively in that the learning goals are focused not only on content knowledge but also scientific thinking skills, working skills, and how to apply scientific knowledge to solve problem in daily life. One reason is that most of them are familiar with didactic approach because it is what they experience in their past education.
3. What could I do that might improve what I am doing?
In order to give opportunity for the pre-service teachers to experience inquiry learning, I will have students engaged in the scientific inquiry context. It may be an immersion unit that the pre-service teachers learn science content with inquiry approach, then follow up with the reflective session where they reflect what they have learn in the unit. The pre-service teachers will reflect how they feel when they learn science via inquiry approach, how this approach inspire them to search for the answers for scientifically oriented questions, and how this approach is more effective than the didactic approach in improving students’ thinking process and skills.
4. As I am acting what data will I collect to enable me to judge my educational influence in my professional context as I answer my question?
After the immersion unit, I will have the pre-service teachers write their lesson plan for specific contents and curriculum standard. I will look for some key ideas in the lesson plan that show the inquiry approach in their instruction. Moreover, I will organize micro-teaching sessions where the pre-service teachers show how they organize classroom. Classroom observation and interviews will be conducted to collect evidence about their teaching practice in classroom whether or not they use inquiry approach.
5. As I evaluate the educational influences of my actions in my own learning and the learning of other, who might be willing to help me to strengthen the validity of my learning?
My colleagues in my department, some experts from department of educational measurement and research
6. What is my past experience that shaped my value on inquiry learning approach?
When I was studying at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, in Teaching for Conceptual Change course, Prof. Peter Hewson invited professional developers to organize workshop regarding to inquiry approach. In this workshop, the speaker gave us two termites and various kinds of pens and asked us to observe them carefully and record what we observed in our notebook. After a few minutes, I realized something that was very interesting. The termites walked follow to the line drawn by a pen! When I used a pen to draw a circle shape, the termite walked on the line of the circle shape. Then the speaker had us to write down our questions from the observation. Most of us wrote something like “Why does the termite walk on the line of ink” or “What cause the termite to walk on the line drawn by a pen” Then the speaker have us to construct our hypothesis and design an experiment to test that hypothesis. The activity was go on thought inquiry learning process and I felt very engaged in this science learning activity that I never felt before. I still remember this activity and scientific content about animal pheromone from that moment until this time I’m writing this essay. So, I think this is the most effective way to teach science.
