Browsing by Subject "inquiry"
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Item Investigating One Science Teacher?s Inquiry Unit Through an Integrated Analysis: The Scientific Practices Analysis (SPA)-Map and the Mathematics and Science Classroom Observation Profile System (M-SCOPS)(2012-10-19) Yoo, DawoonSince the 1950s, inquiry has been considered an effective strategy to promote students? science learning. However, the use of inquiry in contemporary science classrooms is minimal, despite its long history and wide recognition elsewhere. Besides, inquiry is commonly confused with discovery learning, which needs minimal level of teacher supervision. The lack of thorough description of how inquiry works in diverse classroom settings is known to be a critical problem. To analyze the complex and dynamic nature of inquiry practices, a comprehensive tool is needed to capture its essence. In this dissertation, I studied inquiry lessons conducted by one high school science teacher of 9th grade students. The inquiry sequence lasted for 10 weeks. Using the Scientific Practices Analysis (SPA)-map and the Mathematics and Science Classroom Observation Profile System (M-SCOPS), elements of inquiry were analyzed from multiple perspectives. The SPA-map analysis, developed as a part of this dissertation, revealed the types of scientific practices in which students were involved. The results from the M-SCOPS provide thorough descriptions of complex inquiry lessons in terms of their content, flow, instructional scaffolding and representational scaffolding. In addition to the detailed descriptions of daily inquiry practices occurring in a dynamic classroom environment, the flow of the lessons in a sequence was analyzed with particular focus on students? participation in scientific practices. The findings revealed the overall increase of student-directed instructional scaffolding within the inquiry sequence, while no particular pattern was found in representational scaffolding. Depending on the level of cognitive complexity imposed on students, the lessons showed different association patterns between the level of scaffolding and scientific practices. The findings imply that teachers need to provide scaffolding in alignment with learning goals to achieve students? scientific proficiency.Item Two rival versions of historical inquiry and their application to the study of the Sixteenth Amendment(Texas A&M University, 2006-08-16) Noland, James R. L.In this dissertation I identify the philosophy of Giambattista Vico and Karl Marx as representing, broadly, two rival versions of historical inquiry. Put simply, these rival versions endorse either reasons or causes, respectively, as the proper objects of study for historians. After introducing the study of the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as an example of the type of historical event towards which these versions of inquiry might by directed, I then outline the arguments Vico and Marx give for these rival versions. Paying special attention to the assumptions about human nature, reason, and freedom at work in these arguments, I propose that comparing the plausibility and feasibility of these assumptions might allow a means of adjudicating between these comprehensive and mutually incompatible methods of historical study. I proceed to draw on the work of John Rawls and Alasdair MacIntyre, among others, to show that Marx??s conceptions of human nature, reason, and freedom are ultimately flawed and therefore untenable. I conclude by arguing that Vico??s version of historical inquiry relies on an understanding of these concepts that is more plausible than Marx??s and withstands the objections to which Marx??s understanding succumbs. Finally, I return my focus to the study of the Sixteenth Amendment and consider how Vico??s version of historical inquiry might inform this project.