Abstract
The Biomind program is a new open inquiry program for Israeli biology high school students. The Biomind program is facilitated by diverse activities of asynchronous on-line forums for teachers and students. This research aims to analyse the discussions that occurred over a period of three years in these forums, in order to obtain a picture of the benefits that virtual discussions hold for the implementation of the open inquiry program. The results presented in this article indicate that students required assistance mainly with searching scientific information, finding experimental techniques and procedures, and phrasing inquiry questions. The three most frequent areas that were discussed in the teachers' forum were technical and procedural aspects of experimentation, bureaucracy and phenomenon identification. In addition, issues such as inferring and discussing, logical progression of the inquiry process, scientific writing, teacher-student interaction, reflective thinking, affective points of view, and forum administration were raised in the forum discourses. The forum discourses create a learning community that contributes to the implementation of the Biomind program, and pinpoint the aspects that should be taken into consideration in the future.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abd-El-Khalick, F., Bell, R.L. & Lederman, N.G. (1998). The nature of science and instructional practice: Making the unnatural natural. Science Education, 82, 417–436.
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Project 2061 (1993). Benchmarks for science literacy. New York: Oxford University Press.
Anfara, V.A., Brown, K.M. & Mangino, T.L. (2002). Qualitative analysis on stage: Making the research process more public. Educational Researcher, 31, 28–38.
Barab, S., MaKinster, J.G., Moore, J., Cunningham, D. & The ILF Design Team. (2001). Designing and building an online community: The struggle to support sociability in the inquiry learning forum. Educational Technology Research and Development, 49(4), 71–96.
Baumgartner, E. & Reiser, B.J. (1998). Strategies for supporting student inquiry in design tasks. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego, CA, April 13–17.
Breuleux, A. (2001). Imagining the present, interpreting the possible, cultivating the future: Technology and the renewal of teaching and learning. Education Canada, 41 (3), 1–8.
Brown, J.S. & Duguid, P. (1998). Organizing knowledge. California Management Review, 40(3), 90–111.
Bybee, R.W. & Loucks-Horsley, S. (2001). National science education standards as a catalyst for change: The essential role of professional development. In J. Rhoton & P. Bowers (Eds.), Professional development planning and design (pp. 1–12). Reston, VA: NSTA Press.
Chang, K-E., Sung, Y-T. & Lee, C-L. (2003). Web-based collaborative inquiry learning. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 19, 56–69.
Feldman, A., Konold, C. & Coulter, B. (2000). Network science, a decade later–the internet and classroom learning. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Jonassen, D., Howland, J., Moore, J. & Marra, R. (2003). Learning to solve problems with technology: a constructivist perspective. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Khishfe, R. & Abd-El-Khalick, F. (2002). Influence of explicit and reflective versus implicit inquiry-oriented instruction on sixth graders views of nature of science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 39, 551–578.
Kubicek, J.P. (2005). Inquiry-based learning, the nature of science, and computer technology: New possibilities in science education. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, 31 [on line]. Available at http://www.cjlt.ca/content/vol31.1/kubicek.html. Accessed 13 June 2006.
Leh, A.S.C., Kouba, B.J. & Davis, D. (2005). Twenty-first century learning: Communities, interaction, and ubiquitous computing. Educational Media International, 42 (3), 237–250.
Lehrer, R., Schauble, L. & Petrosino, A.J. ( 2001). Reconsidering the role of experiment in science education. In K. Crowley, C. Schunn, & T. Okada (Eds.), Designing for science: Implications from everyday, classroom, and professional settings (pp. 251–277). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Lim, B.-R. (2004). Challenges and issues in designing inquiry on the Web. British Journal of Educational Technology, 35(5), 627–643.
Linn, M.C., Clark, D.B. & Slotta, J.D. (2003). WISE design for knowledge integration. Science Education, 87, 517–538.
Mendelovici, R. (1996). Teaching biology in high school in Israel in the middle of the 1990s, emphasizing inquiry. MSc Thesis, The Hebrew University in Jerusalem (in Hebrew).
National Research Council (NRC) (1996). National science education standards. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
National Research Council (NRC) (2000). Inquiry and the national science education standards. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
Payne, D.A. (1994). Designing educational project and program evaluations: A practical overview based on research and experience. Boston: Kluwer.
Pidgeon, N. (1996). Grounded theory: Theoretical background. In J. T. R. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of qualitative research methods (pp. 75–85). Leicester: The British Psychological Society Books.
Quintana, C., Reiser, B.J., Davis, E.A., Krajcik, J., Fretz, E., Duncan, R., Kyza, E.A., Edelson, D.C. & Soloway, E. (2004). A scaffolding design framework for software to support science inquiry. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 13(3), 337–386.
Reiser, B.J., Tabak, I., Sandoval, W.A., Smith, B., Steinmuller, F. & Leone, T.J. (2001). BGuILE: Strategic and conceptual scaffolds for scientific inquiry in biology classrooms. In S.M. Carver & D. Klahr (Eds.), Cognition and instruction: Twenty five years of progress (pp. 263–305). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Roth, W.M. (1993). Metaphors and conversational analysis as tools in reflection on teaching practice: Two perspectives on teacher-student interactions in open inquiry science. Science Education, 77(4), 351–373.
Roth, W.M. (1999). Scientific research expertise from middle school to professional practice. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal, Quebec.
Rudolph, J.L. (2005). Inquiry, instrumentalism, and the public understanding of science. Science Education, 89, 803–821.
Sandelowski, M. (2001). Real qualitative researchers do not count the use of numbers in qualitative research. Research in Nursing & Health, 24(3), 230–240.
Schwab, J.J. (1958). The teaching of science as inquiry. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 14, 374–379.
Schwab, J.J. (1962). The teaching of science as enquiry. In P.F. Brandwein (Ed.), The teaching of science (pp. 1–103). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Shedletzky, E. & Zion, M. (2005). The essence of open-inquiry teaching. Science Education International, 16(1), 23–38.
Thomas, G.P. (2001). Toward effective computer use in high school science education: Where to from here? Education and Information Technologies, 6(1), 29–41.
Tytler, R. (2004) Constructivist views of teaching and learning. In G. Venville & V. Dawson (Eds.), The art of teaching science (pp. 18–33). Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Von Glasersfeld, E. (1990). An exposition of constructivism: Why some like it radical. In R.B. Davis, C.A. Maher & N. Noddings (Eds.), Constructivist views on the teaching and learning of mathematics (pp. 19–29). Reston, VA: NCTM.
Windschitl, M. (1998). The WWW and classroom research: What path should we take? Educational Researcher, 27(1), 28–33.
Windschitl, M. (2003). Inquiry projects in science teacher education: What can investigative experiences reveal about teacher thinking and eventual classroom practice? Science Education, 87(1), 112–143.
Winn, W.D. (2002). Current trends in educational technology research: The study of learning environments. Educational Psychology Review, 14(3), 331–351.
Zion, M., Shapira, D., Slezak, M., Link, E., Bashan, N., Brumer, M., Orian, T., Nussinowitz, R., Agrest, B. & Mendelovici, R. (2004a). Biomind—a new biology curriculum that enables authentic inquiry learning. Journal of Biological Education, 38(2), 59–67.
Zion, M., Slezak, M., Shapira, D., Link, E., Bashan, N., Brumer, M., Orian, T., Nussinowitz, R., Court, D., Agrest, B. & Mendelovici, R. (2004b). Dynamic, open inquiry in biology learning. Science Education, 88, 728–753.
Zion, M., Michalsky, T. & Mevarech, Z.R. (2005). The effects of metacognitive instruction embedded within an asynchronous learning network on scientific inquiry skills. International Journal of Science Education, 27(8), 959–983.
Zion, M. & Slezak, M. (2005). It takes two to tango: In dynamic inquiry, the self-directed student acts in association with the facilitating teacher. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21, 875–894.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zion, M. On line Forums as a `Rescue Net' in an Open Inquiry Process. Int J of Sci and Math Educ 6, 351–375 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-006-9051-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-006-9051-x