Inquiry, Modeling, and Metacognition: Making Science Accessible to All Students

“Although materials are created to initiate changes on a large scale, directions alone are not sufficient for most teachers to implement effective practices (Anderson, 1995; Franke, Carpenter, Levi, & Fennema, 1998; White & Frederiksen, 1998).”

“Even more encouraging is that academically weak students are found to benefit from metacognitive training ( White and Frederiksen 1998 ).”

“In ThinkerTools, a microworld environment designed to foster metacognition and scientific understanding ( White & Fredericksen, 1998 ), students work through the inquiry cycles required for developing increasingly complex conceptual models in science.”

“Modeling and simulation tools can also make scientific ideas, scientific research, and students’ thinking about those ideas visible (White & Frederiksen, 1998).”

“Other research explores scaffolds that support understanding of an inquiry cycle for modeling (e.g., Schwarz & White, 2005; Schwarz et al., 2009) and meta-awareness of core reasoning processes (White & Frederiksen, 1998).”

“…from direct observation in multiple classrooms, as well as from literature on scientific inquiry (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993; Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Ebenezer & Haggerty, 1999; NRC, 1996, 2001; Stipek, Salmon, & Givvin, 1998; White & Frederiksen, 1998).”

“Experimental and quasi-experimental studies have indicated that learning environments designed after these principles have the potential to foster students’ engagement, resulting in better learning results and favorable motivational development (eg, Hardy et al, 2006 ; Hickey, Moore, & Pellegrino, 2001 ; Schroeder, Sc…”

“(Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Collins, 1988; White & Frederiksen, 1998 ).”

“…and effective metacognition (Blanton, Moorman, Hayes, & Warner, 1997; Herrnstein, Nickerson, Sánchez, & Swets, 1986; Kolodner, Gray, & Fasse, 2003; Mayer et al., 1997; White & Frederiksen, 1998; Williams, Blythe, White, Gardner, & Sternberg, 2002; Williams, Papierno, Makel, & Ceci, 2004).”

“This strategy has proven highly useful in designing assessments of mathematics and physics (e.g., Hunt & Minstrell, 1994; Marshall, 1995; White & Frederiksen, 1998), but it has never been applied to improve the validity of evolution assessment instruments.”

“Although studies on inquiry learning have recognized the importance of developing students’ inquiry skills (eg, White & Frederiksen, 1998 ), they provided little guidance about what inquiry skills are needed for explanatory activities and how students’ inquiry skills evolve over time.”

“Second order effects for supported discovery learning have been observed in a number of studies, as mentioned above (White & Frederiksen 1998; Hickey et al. 2003; Ketelhut et al. 2006) as well as in Swaak and de Jong (2001), who found an effect of specific assignments on the development of…”

“Research on the effects of student self-assessment covers a wide range of content areas including social studies (Lewbel & Hibbard, 2001), science (Duffrin, Dawes, Hanson, Miyazaki, & Wolfskill, 1998; White & Frederiksen, 1998), and external examinations (MacDonald & Boud, 2003).”

“Many researchers have urged the adoption of more authentic inquiry-based pedagogies to enhanced science learning (Chinn & Malhotra, 2001; Singer, Marx, Krajcik, & Chambers, 2000; White & Frederiksen, 1998).”

“…activities geared toward allowing the student to make sense of new concepts through talk or writing, which allow the teacher to gather information on student understanding to guide his or her next steps (Palincsar & Brown, 1984; Scardamalia, Bereiter, & Steinbach, 1984; White & Frederiksen, 1998).”

“We find our current work synergistic with that of White and her colleagues (Frederiksen et al. 1999; White and Frederiksen 1998), who, in their earlier research on learning basic electricity, found that providing explanations of current flow in terms of the behavior of electrically charged…”

“Control of variables thinking strategy”

“According to White and colleagues, scientific inquiry is an active process comprised of four primary components: (a) theorizing, (b) questioning and hypothesizing, (c) investigating, and (d) analyzing and synthesizing (White & Frederiksen, 1998; White, Frederiksen, & Collins, in preparation).”

“Those tools included ThinkerToolsTM (force-and-motion: White & Frederiksen, 1998), Model-itTM (general relation-based: Spitulnik, Ktajcik, & Soloway, 1999), Archimedes & BeyondTM (matter: Smith, Snir, & Raz, 2002), Models of MatterTM (matter: Smith, Snir, & Grosslight, 1992), and MARSTM (matter:…”

“For example, research studies in urban and suburban areas have shown that middle school students who learned physics in an inquiry-based setting outperformed their high school coun­terparts who were taught with more conventional methods [White and Fredrickson 1997; White and Frederiksen 1998].”

“Eventually, this process of testing mental models on the basis of empirical observations can help students bring their mental models in line with the real phenomena (Papadouris & Constantinou, 2009; White & Frederiksen, 1998).”

“…also provides teachers the opportunity to select from a large pool of learning activities such as mastery learning (Bloom 1968), peer instruction (Mazur 1997), cooperative learning (White and Frederiksen 1998), role-playing (Van Ments 1999), inquirybased learning (Prince and Vigeant 2006), and 5-”

“…(see e.g., Friedler et al. 1990; Kuhn et al. 2000; Njoo and de Jong 1993; Quintana et al. 2004) that differ in level of detail but basically present the same series of phases that are often used to organize students’ learning process (see e.g., White and Frederiksen 1998; Sharples et al. 2014).”

“…be seen as an admonition to discourage discussion (including generating self-explanations) after game play, as this technique has been successfully employed by White and Frederiksen (1998) in helping students reflect on their experiences in a computer game aimed at teaching Newton’s laws of motion.”

“…use of textbooks generate important questions regarding how to use textbooks effectively, a few important studies on science curricular material focus on developing an understanding of specific topics over time, such as thermodynamics (Clark & Linn, 2003) or mechanics (White & Frederiksen, 1998).”

“For example, externalizing mental models via inscription or dialogue can help learners express their thinking, visualize their ideas in more organized ways, and test components of their ideas (Izsak, 2000; Mellar, Bliss, Boohan, Ogborn, & Tompsett, 1994; White & Fredericksen, 1998).”

“There are many interpretations of what might be happening in students’ minds (e.g., White & Frederiksen, 1998).”

“Research shows that peer evaluation such as reßective assessment helps students improve the quality of their artifacts (White & Frederiksen, 1998, 2000) and the scores of younger and lower achieving students in achievement tests (White & Frederiksen, 1998, 2000).”

“However, instead of reserving physics for a gifted few, many feel that technology offers the chance to change commonly held perceptions about who can or should learn physics (White & Frederiksen, 1998).”

“Computer-based modeling tools, thus, enable students to express and manipulate their mental representation of a phenomenon, which supports the reorganization and refinement of their conceptual understanding (e.g., Jonassen, Strobel, & Gottdenker, 2005; White & Frederiksen, 1998; Wild, 1996).”

“White and Frederiksen (1998) and Schwarz and White (2005) for example, used such activities with secondary students to foster modeling capabilities around law-like relationships underlying force and motion.”

“Cycles of feedback, revision, and reflection are aspects of metacognition that are critical for students to regulate their own learning (Pashler et al., 2007; White and Frederiksen, 1998).”

“sought to train students to engage in metacognitive thinking to improve their learning (e.g., White & Frederiksen, 1998 ).”

“…to support productive disciplinary learning is one of many approaches that design for student engagement in disciplinary thinking and discussion (Engle & Conant, 2002; Hennessey, 2002; Hmelo-Silver, 2004; Krajcik & Blumenfeld, 2006; Martin et al., 2007; Reiser, 2004; White & Frederiksen, 1998).”

“Thus, the mental model evolves through multiple recursions as it is made increasingly complex and, hopefully, more accurate (Johnson-Laird, 1983; White and Frederiksen, 1998).”

“Furthermore, instructional interventions seem to play a key role in developing understandings in young children that many adults never acquire (Duschl et al., 2007; Klahr & Nigam, 2004; Linn, Lee, Tinker, Husic, & Chiu, 2006; Smith, Maclin, Houghton, & Hennessey, 2000; White & Frederiksen, 1998).”

“This finding is supported by other studies conducted in a guided-inquiry environment (Krajcik et al., 1998; Tabak, 1999; White & Frederiksen, 1998 ).”

“…students will not benefit from learner-centered approaches, when in fact there is compelling research that indicates these students do benefit from these types of learning activities, which they also find more motivating (e.g., Chan & Lee, 2007; White & Frederiksen, 1998; Zohar & Dori, 2003).”

“…exists demonstrating the effectiveness of teaching metacognitive skills in helping students to better understand mathematical and scientific concepts and, therefore, to think more scientifically (Despete, Roeyers, & Buysse, 2001; Georghiades, 2000; Glynn & Muth, 1994; White & Frederiksen, 1998).”

“Drawing on the studies of modeling and of scaffolds in learning tools (Jackson, 1999; Linn, 1998; Quintana, 2001; White & Frederiksen, 1998), this study investigates how the scaffolds designed into a dynamic modeling software program support the use of modeling practices by science students.”

“56 2003 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Keywords: Collaboration; Concept map; Inquiry learning; Process; Teachers; Undergraduate; World-wide web”

“that have been identified in previous research and reform documents (e.g., Krajcik et al. 1998; NRC 2011; White and Frederiksen 1998): (1) Asking questions: generating questions, drawing on background knowledge, and making predictions; (2) Planning and carrying out investigations: finding information, designing invest…”

“Other researchers have taken a normative stance, based on expert views, leading to descriptions of the ideal modelling process (de Jong et al., 2002; Hestenes, 1987; Schecker, 1998; White & Frederiksen, 1998).”

“Learning is facilitated not only by receiving feedback on one's own ideas, but also by attending to the ideas of others (White and Frederiksen 1998).”

“However, a fourth construct, assessment, with five indicators emerged from the remaining indicators (see Appendix): (1) prior knowledge (Bransford et al., 2000 ;C hambers A White & Frederiksen, 1998, 2005; Wiggins & McTighe, 1998), (4) assessment type(s) (Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall, & ...”

“Science Assistments also differs from other microworld-based discovery environments [e.g., White and Frederiksen 1998; van Joolingen and de Jong 2003; Buckley, Gobert, & Horwitz 2006; McElhaney and Linn 2008, 2010; Buckley et al. 2010; de Jong et al. 2010] in several ways.”

“This may be because scaffolding to support students’ efforts during inquiry units has tended to be developed for and investigated with high- or average-achieving students (White and Frederiksen 1998).”

“Considerable progress has been made in designing for metacognition within open learning environments, such as inquiry (Luckin and Hammerton 2002; Quintana et al. 2005; White and Frederiksen 1998), discovery (de Jong and van Joolingen 1998), and hypermedia (Azevedo 2005a) environments.”

“A number of studies have been conducted to overcome these problems by assisting learners with scaffolding mechanisms [13], [17], [23], [24].”

“More importantly, when students take ownership of their learning within shared frameworks, student learning improves (Cohen et al., 2003; White & Frederiksen, 1998).”

“…and Hsi, 2000; Scardamalia et al., 1989), science inquiry projects (Glaser, 1976; Champagne et al., 1980; Driver et al., 1985; Collins et al., 1991; White and Frederiksen, 1998; Linn and Hsi, 2000), and epistemology, both in general (Schommer, 1990, 1993), and epistemology of science in particular…”

“Students may thereby become aware of contradictions and shortcomings of their conceptual knowledge (e.g., Mevarech & Fridkin, 2006; White & Frederiksen, 1998; Zepeda, Elizabeth, Ronevich, & Nokes-Malach, 2015).”

“This inquiry process is the most important factor which characterises IBL and has been considered beneficial in augmenting meaningful learning (Brown & Campione, 1994; Collins, Brown & Holum, 1991; Cognition & Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 1997; Linn & Hsi, 2000; Slotta, 2002; White & Frederickson, 1998 ).”

“A lasting improvement in SRL is no-toriously difficult to achieve, so the progress made in this work should be viewed positively, just like other instructional programs that have succeeded in this regard (Mevarech & Kramarski, 2003; White & Frederiksen, 1998; Zimmerman & Moylan, 2009).”

“This conclusion is in line with prior research in both science and mathematics education showing that metacognitive instruction was highly beneficial for low achieving students (Cardelle-Elawar 1995; Mevarech and Kramarski 1997; White and Frederiksen 1998, 2000; Mevarech 1999; Kramarski et al. 2002; Teong 2003; Mevare…”

“…learning in the geosciences (Edelson, Gordin & Pea, 1999), project-based science and laboratory work (Krajcik, Blumenfeld, Marx, Bass, Fredricks & Soloway, 1998), laws of force and motion (White & Frederiksen, 1998), and concepts of growth and development (Zuckerman, Chudinova & Khavkin, 1998).”

“Drawing on examples of reflective-assessments (White & Frederiksen, 1998), we specified levels of sophistication from one-to-five, with different descriptions of communication patterns for each level.”

“Additional empirical studies have supported the more specific claim thatusingmetacognitionmayimprove learningofproblem-solvingandhigherorder thinking skills (Chen & Klahr, 1999; Lin & Lehman, 1999; Ross, 1988; Schoenfeld, 1992; Toth, Klahr, & Chen, 2000; White & Frederiksen, 1998, 2000).”

“Enabling students to acquire such abilities could reduce the differences in learning between younger and older children (White & Frederiksen, 1998).”

“Some researchers have proposed metacognitive skills are domain-general, suggesting that high metacognitive skills can potentially compensate for overall aptitude and prior knowledge of learners (Swanson, 1990; 99 Veenman, Elshout, & Meijer, 1988; White & Frederiksen, 1998; 2005).”