The journey into inquiry land in Tennessee: How to get there from anywhere? Lessons learned over 25 years

Abstract

Driven by changes in the National Standards during the 1990s, inquiry became the pedagogical methodology of choice for K-12 sciences as a major paradigm shift. Inquiry was chosen because it realistically and accurately modeled how scientists conduct scientific studies. Scientific inquiry is itself a learning process, and early educational research suggested that students learned more efficiently through inquiry. However, inquiry was a difficult pedagogy for teachers to learn and for students to experience, as it appears chaotic and decentralized. K-12 Earth science in Tennessee was in need of revitalization, in terms of shifting to the new Earth systems curriculum and incorporating inquiry as the pedagogy of delivery. To tackle both problems in tandem, the authors collaborated with the Tennessee Department of Education, Tennessee Science Teachers Association, and Tennessee Earth Science Teachers (TEST) to develop a series of Earth science professional development opportunities in which inquiry was modeled as the pedagogical vehicle and content was organized into Earth systems. We provide an anecdotal before-and-after perspective that spans 25 years of experiential lessons the workshop leaders learned about the “journey into inquiry land” from any other pedagogy. These lessons, applicable to all sciences, serve as the cornerstone to teaching inquiry to new teachers, as well as to seasoned veteran teachers making the switch to the inquiry-driven classroom.