Creativity in today’s curriculum: Scientific Enquiry
In
this area, I will be focusing on primary level learning in Science. It
is important to ensure that the children’s learning is engaging and
creative as children tend to perform better both cognitively and
physically when it is.
What is Creative Enquiry?
Enquiry
learning is a student-centred approach that encourages children to come
up with their own questions to which they will find answers. This means
that they are naturally using higher order thinking skills. Creative
enquiry involves practical tasks which can enhance children’s practical
thinking skills and problem solving skills when taking part in
activities.
Scientific Enquiry entails children taking part in scientific experiments to find out the answers of their aims. The
types of enquiry involve exploring, fair testing,
classifying/identifying, pattern seeking, investigating models and
making things. (Watson et al 1998, cited by Phillips 2014)
The
teacher has to be an enabler, not only helping children during their
activities, but planning the topic, organising the classroom, making
materials available and establishing a climate in which children are
free to discuss and explore their ideas. Through sensitive questioning,
setting the children an example of how to use process skills, displaying
positive attitudes towards science and giving children support when and
where they need it, the teacher will be promoting effective learning in
science.
(Ollerenshaw and Ritchie, 1993. p12)
Orellenshaw
and Ritchie have discussed the ideal roles that a teacher should have
when teaching a science lesson. They have also discussed the ideal roles
that a teacher should have when providing suitable activities for the
children to work in when doing practical working using their scientific
enquiry. Ollerenshaw and Ritchie (1993, p13) stated that:
The
role of the teacher is a complex one and of paramount importance in
helping children to develop their process skills and scientific concepts
and encouraging and fostering positive attitudes to science. None of
this happens by accident: the teacher has to provide the necessary
opportunities for skills and understanding to develop.
They both have come up with four steps which are:
1) Orientation
In
this step, children have to come up with an idea which will arouse
their interest to find information on, this stage also provide children
some time to think, time to consider and to organise their ideas. The
starting point of coming up with an idea may be a visit, a story and
other types of stimuli.
2) Elicitation/Structuring
This
step is the exploratory stage which helps the children become
understandable about what they were thinking about and to develop their
ideas. When clarifying their thinking, they will enable the teacher to
assess the children’s ideas and help them plan the next step
appropriate.
3) Intervention/Restructuring
In
this step, the children commence to expand and substitute old ideas
with new ones through investigation. The children are persuaded to carry
out tests and contrast ideas in a more orderly method using their
investigative process skills.
4) Review
This
step gives the opportunity for children and the teacher and/or the
whole class to refer back to their previous ideas and support the
children to see the purpose of what they did and what they have found
out during their investigation.
Here,
I have made a Scientific Enquiry cycle map to simplify both Ollerenshaw
and Ritchie’s methods and make it more visual as an idea of how it may
be presented to the class to ensure that the children understand what
their task is.
In
our seminar, our lecturer has given us a group task to plan an ideal
science experiment that can be used in a primary school. We worked
collaboratively and thought about an appropriate and safe experiment
that you can use in school. We came up with, as a group, the Mouldy
Bread experiment.
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Made on Microsoft Publisher
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Ideal Scientific Enquiry cycle my group and I created. |
When creating this cycle, my
group members and I have discovered that this method of learning
activated our thinking as we were very eager to work out the next step,
unfortunately we did not carry out the experiment to solve the mystery
due to university and work commitments. We believed that this method may
engage children's learning as they will have to come up with an idea
and follow it through in practice as children love to do things manually
rather than sit in a formal learning environment.
References
Harlen, W. 2000. The Teaching of Science in Primary Schools. 3rd Ed. London: David Fulton Publishers.
Ollerenshaw, C & R, Ritchie. 1993. Primary Science: Making it work. London: David Fulton Publishers.
Unesco, n.d. What is creative inquiry?. [Online]
Available at: http://www.unesco.org/education/tlsf/mods/theme_d/mod23.html
[Accessed 22.07.2015].