After carefully reading a masterpiece, I believe everyone has gained a lot of knowledge. It is important to record it. Let’s write a review together. Have you thought about how to write your review? The following is a sample review of "Inquiry-Based Teaching" that I compiled for you. You are welcome to read it. I hope you will like it.

Since the implementation of the new curriculum reform, inquiry teaching has been a hot topic in the education sector. With the efforts of the majority of educational theory and practice workers, a large number of relevant theoretical results and practical cases have been produced. However, at the same time, there are still many teachers who are not able or unwilling to carry out inquiry teaching. In the past few years, the author has paid great attention to the progress of inquiry teaching. And often go to primary and secondary schools for classroom observation. Although there were some wonderful inquiries during the observation process, in general the mainstream was still lectures. In my communication with teachers, I felt that they still had many confusions and misunderstandings about inquiry, which seriously hindered the promotion of inquiry teaching practice. The following is a brief analysis of these issues in conjunction with science courses, and relevant suggestions are put forward.

1. What is inquiry teaching?

This issue seems unnecessary to discuss today, but in fact it is the most confusing. One of the important points is that most of the relevant important literature is from the perspective of students. They mostly talk about what students should do, but rarely talk about what teachers should do. The terminology prefers "inquiry learning" rather than "inquiry teaching". . When discussing the meaning of inquiry learning, either quote the definition from the National Science Education Standards: “Scientific inquiry refers to the diverse ways in which scientists study the natural world and propose explanations based on the evidence obtained from such research. Scientific inquiry also refers to various activities that students use to acquire knowledge, understand scientific ideas, and understand the methods used by scientists to study the natural world." Or quote the explanation of the scientific inquiry process in my country's "Science Curriculum Standards": Asking questions. , conjectures and hypotheses, making plans, observing experiments and production, collecting and organizing information, summarizing and thinking, expressing and communicating. This practice of using scientific inquiry to explain scientific learning can easily lead to cognitive confusion, equate students' inquiry with scientists' inquiry, and require students to follow the basic procedures of inquiry; on the other hand, it also makes teachers carry out inquiry I feel at a loss when teaching and don’t know what to do to arouse and promote students’ inquiry.

Although understanding the definition and procedures of scientific inquiry is helpful in carrying out inquiry teaching, for front-line teachers who are used to teaching, even if they can memorize the definitions and procedures, it does not mean that they can use them to guide classroom practice. . In fact, only when the practical knowledge of teachers who directly guide teaching, and the concepts and strategies of inquiry teaching are transformed into practical knowledge of teachers can they form corresponding teaching beliefs and play an effective guiding role. Therefore, if we can help teachers learn more about inquiry teaching methods and experience them through practice, so as to gain a more perceptual and intuitive understanding, it will undoubtedly promote their inquiry teaching practice. To this end, we suggest that frontline teachers learn more about inquiry teaching models, try to use these models according to actual situations, and deepen the concepts and practices of inquiry teaching through practice and reflection. The United States is an early country in carrying out inquiry teaching. Here we introduce four commonly used models for teachers’ reference.

① Exploration of structure. Teachers provide students with questions, procedures, and materials to investigate through hands-on activities, but do not provide expected results. Students are required to summarize the collected data, discover the relationship between variables, and draw their own conclusions. This kind of inquiry is somewhat similar in nature to what people often call "prescribing medicine according to the prescription", except that the teacher provides relatively little guidance when students observe and collect data, so it is called low-level inquiry by researchers. ②Guided inquiry. Teachers only provide research questions and materials, and students need to design their own problem-solving procedures and find answers to the questions. Because guided inquiry requires students to assume greater responsibilities and exert greater subjective initiative, it is called intermediate-level inquiry by researchers. ③Open inquiry. This model is basically similar to guided inquiry, except that students also have to formulate their own research questions. That is to say, in open inquiry, students need to complete all inquiry tasks independently. To a large extent, open inquiry is similar to scientists doing scientific research, that is, scientific inquiry, so it is called advanced inquiry by researchers. ④Learning loop. This model includes three basic links: exploring concepts, introducing concepts, and applying concepts. In the exploration stage, students engage in hands-on activities in order to gain practical experience with a certain concept; then the teacher introduces the scientific terminology of the concept; in the application stage, students apply the concept to new environments to deepen their understanding of the concept.

Among the above modes, the first three mainly focus on discovering scientific concepts or principles, and the fourth mode focuses on scientific concepts or principles. When teachers try to use the first three modes, they should pay attention to the process from easy to difficult, and grasp the role requirements and degree of participation of teachers and students in asking questions, designing procedures, and drawing conclusions. As for the fourth mode, it can be used alone or in combination with the first three modes, that is, after discovering the concept or principle, an expansion and application link is added.

Our country also has various levels of inquiry teaching, ranging from easy to difficult, such as "learning by doing", "demonstration inquiry", "experimental inquiry", "pure theoretical inquiry", etc.

Therefore, teachers should realize that there are not only many types of inquiry teaching, but also that real inquiry classes cannot be perfect from the beginning, nor can they be exciting every time. Using scientific inquiry to require inquiry in the classroom and using wonderful cases to demonstrate it may be unattainable, but it plays a leading role in inquiry teaching. Teachers can think of these requirements and examples as an end point to strive for and start from a lower level of inquiry, a starting point.

2. Is inquiry teaching suitable for all children?

In the opinion of many teachers, inquiry teaching is only suitable for smart students. This view is certainly inappropriate. The correct view is that some explorations are suitable for all children, while others may be more effective for brighter children. Since the mid-20th century when American scholars such as Sachman and Schwab launched an inquiry teaching craze, researchers have studied the inquiry process based on Piaget's theory of cognitive development. In the past 20 years, researchers have mostly studied the inquiry process based on constructivism. From the perspective of examining the learning process, these studies have basically achieved the following two insights: First, the inquiry process involves a large amount of inductive and deductive reasoning. Generally speaking, inductive reasoning needs to be used from the formation of the problem to the formulation of hypotheses, while deductive reasoning needs to be used in the expansion and testing of hypotheses. Second, children who are in the development stage of action thinking and image thinking will encounter great obstacles when understanding abstract concepts. For primary and secondary school students, this means that not all knowledge points are suitable for inquiry teaching, or can achieve ideal inquiry results. Although theoretically speaking, students in the development stage of concrete thinking are suitable for exploring concrete concepts, and students in the development stage of abstract thinking can explore abstract concepts. However, judging from the actual teaching results, concrete concepts are far easier to explore than abstract concepts. For example, in the lesson "Research on Pendulums" in the fourth grade of primary school, "pendulum" is a specific concept. The factor that affects the speed of the pendulum swing is mainly the length of the cycloid. However, primary school students who are in the stage of concrete thinking will think that cycloid, pendulum, etc. Both the angle and the pendulum may affect the speed of the pendulum swing, so it is suitable for inquiry teaching. In the actual teaching process, because teachers require students to make pendulums by themselves and observe pendulums, they can successfully complete various stages of inquiry activities through concrete thinking on the basis of personal experience, and conclude that "the longer the cycloid, the longer the pendulum." , the slower the swing; the shorter the cycloid, the faster the swing" is the correct conclusion.

Sometimes even if it is an exploration of specific concepts, if the requirements for primary school students’ reasoning activities are too high, the ideal results will not be achieved. For example, when studying the "thermal expansion and contraction" properties of liquids, teachers use "water" that students are familiar with to explore. In order to attract students' attention to the changes in water level, the teacher dyed the water red with ink in advance. When the students observed the demonstration experiment of heating and cooling water and discussed the observation results and concluded that "water has the property of thermal expansion and contraction", the teacher asked the students: "Does kerosene have the property of thermal expansion and contraction?" The students said nothing. The answer was unambiguous: "No! Because kerosene is not red." When the teacher once again showed through experiments that kerosene also has the property of thermal expansion and contraction, and then asked whether soy sauce can also expand and contract with heat, the teacher was disappointed that the students still They answered in unison: "No, because the soy sauce can't burn." These answers reflect that primary school students are still in the stage of concrete image thinking. Their thinking is greatly affected by the external characteristics of things and cannot get rid of the abstract key variables of concrete images (red, burning). (Liquid) makes hypothetical reasoning, so it cannot be based on the thermal expansion and contraction of water, kerosene or soy sauce to conclude that all liquids have thermal expansion and contraction properties. As for the exploration of the abstract concept of molecular motion patterns of liquid thermal expansion and contraction, that is beyond the ability of primary school students.

In addition, practice also shows that the more familiar students are with the activities, materials used, and background involved in inquiry, the smoother the inquiry teaching process will be. On the contrary, the more unfamiliar they are, the harder it will be to continue the inquiry process. For example, in order to explore the resistance of "air", the teacher used a vacuum tube to set up a problem situation. When the primary school students saw that the feathers and stones in the vacuum tube fell at the same speed, the students felt that this was "very magical", "very strange", and "a bit scary", and concluded The conclusion that "without air, feathers become as heavy as stones" simply cannot think of problems related to air resistance, making teaching impossible. This situation is mainly caused by students being in a strange environment, and the emotions of surprise affect their normal thinking activities. Therefore, in order to allow all students to participate in inquiry and benefit from inquiry teaching, we recommend: ① Select specific and observable concepts, that is, specific concepts, to carry out inquiry teaching; ② Conduct inquiry teaching around problems that students can solve through direct investigation and research. Inquiry activities; ③ Inquiry activities should try to make use of materials and situations that students are familiar with; ④ Choose inquiry activities that are suitable for students' knowledge and skill levels.

3. What do teachers do in a successful inquiry classroom?

Although inquiry should be conducted independently by students, its success is inseparable from the efforts of teachers. Teachers must have certain attitudes and skills to encourage and guide students to successfully carry out inquiry learning.

First of all, teachers must support inquiry teaching and must firmly believe in the importance of students independently deciding the types and methods of inquiry activities, and then create a democratic classroom atmosphere in the classroom, allowing students to express their opinions boldly, and encouraging students to be free comminicate. It often happens that when faced with unexpected problems from students, teachers simply put aside the preset teaching assumptions and suggested that students find ways to solve the problems themselves. As a result, the classroom atmosphere was extremely active and the students' thinking was quite sharp. , but achieved unexpected and ideal results.

Many such cases have emerged in the new curriculum reform, which shows on the other hand that it is necessary to believe in students and encourage and support students to explore independently.

Secondly, to promote the success of students' inquiry, teachers must have abstract thinking ability, which is what Piaget called formal thinking ability, have a deep understanding of the subject content to be explored, and understand the students' thinking development level. Only in this way can teachers select and design inquiry activities that not only meet the requirements of subject content but also suit students' thinking development levels, and guide students to develop their thinking in inquiry activities. Therefore, in a successful inquiry classroom, when students are engaged in various inquiry activities, teachers should carefully observe students' operational activities, patiently listen to students' expressions and exchanges, sensitively judge students' difficulties and obstacles, and timely adjust the inquiry teaching model and Strategy.

In order to promote the success of students’ inquiry learning, we recommend that teachers adopt the following teaching behaviors: ① Ask more open-ended or divergent questions, using words such as “What problems do you want to study”, “What ideas do you have”, "If a certain situation happens, what do you think will happen?"; ② After asking the question, give students sufficient time to think, rather than rushing them to answer; ③ When responding to students' answers, teachers should repeat or restate Express students instead of giving praise or criticism to avoid students getting some hints or biases, thus encouraging students to develop the habit of independent thinking instead of looking for answers or proofs from teachers; ④ Develop plans such as asking, answering, and grouping , communicate and other classroom activity routines, and maintain classroom discipline.

4. How teachers maintain classroom discipline

A prominent feature of the inquiry teaching process is that it is open and generative. For many teachers, inquiry activities are diverse and classroom situations are complex and changeable, making them very cumbersome to manage. From a practical point of view, inquiry is indeed more likely to cause chaos than teaching. Many teachers are annoyed by classroom discipline and even create situations that are difficult to deal with. We believe that inquiry is different from teaching. On the one hand, its management requires teachers to establish a new view of classroom discipline, change the habit of "listening quietly" in the classroom, and gradually adapt to the new "activity" classroom; on the other hand, we must also realize that the inquiry process The generation of education is not blind, and students' autonomy does not mean letting it go. Teachers' planning and guidance are still needed. Therefore, in order to reduce classroom chaos, teachers should strengthen preparation and arrangements before class, and guidance and regulation during class, so that they can be autonomous and orderly. What should be particularly emphasized here is that the more emphasis is placed on generation, the more planning must be strengthened to achieve "wonderful production presets".

When planning and preparing for inquiry teaching, it is important to enable both teachers and students to gradually shift from accepting teaching to inquiry teaching, and make the next new attempt after becoming familiar with and mastering a new form of teaching activity. . For example, for teachers, the inquiry teaching model mentioned above should start with structured inquiry, because it is not significantly different from traditional teaching, and the transition between teachers and students is relatively easy. For example, the "inquiry-discussion" method of primary school science teaching advocated by Lambunda in the United States belongs to this kind of structured inquiry. The important reason why it is well known to many primary school science teachers in my country and is widely used is that It makes full use of children's favorite activity forms and familiar daily materials, but avoids placing excessive reasoning requirements on teachers and students. It generally allows children to draw descriptive scientific conclusions based on summarizing their own hands-on activity experience. Conclusions rarely involve judgments and reasoning about causal relationships. On the contrary, if teachers are greedy for more and seek speed, and start with open inquiry all at once, the class will inevitably fall into chaos, fail to achieve the purpose of inquiry, and even cause the entire classroom plan to abort.

For students, the multi-faceted inquiry activities they need to engage in, such as observation, questioning, hypothesis, analyzing data, expressing and communicating conclusions, etc., are difficult and easy. Teachers should let students proceed from easy to difficult, step by step. . We suggest that at the beginning of inquiry, teachers can leave the selection and analysis of data to students' independent inquiry. For example, when a large amount of data is obtained at the end of the experimental activity, let the students decide what data to record and how to record the data. Students may feel confused and confused at the beginning, not knowing which data is useful and which data is inappropriate. However, as long as the teacher provides appropriate guidance and asks them why they made such a choice, whether it was made randomly or what is the basis for it, students will gradually understand. The selection of data cannot be arbitrary, but depends on whether they are relevant to the problem to be solved, and it is clear which data supports the hypothesis and which data conflicts with the hypothesis. The reason why data selection and analysis is suitable for inquiry is that it is neither a purely hands-on activity nor a purely abstract brain activity. What students need to understand is the connection between data and ideas. Although this requires thinking activities, it does not It requires too big a jump and is therefore beyond the student's ability. After students become accustomed to recording and analyzing data on their own, teachers make other adjustments, gradually allowing them to independently complete two or more stages of the inquiry process, until they finally engage in open inquiry.