Action Research: Inquiry Versus Direct Instruction Ashley Valentino

 Enrolled in Inquiry courses- saw many benefits  Became Physics Inquiry Teaching assistant  Inquiry Advisor for OSU Education Grant Program  The changes made in the classrooms I worked in were noticeable. Student engagement and attitude highly increased. Why did I choose this focus?

 Does the method of instruction, inquiry-based or direct, affect:  Student attitude towards learning?  Academic achievement?  Academic confidence? Research Questions

Inquiry-based learning  Hands on or interactive learning tasks. Students will be up and moving around the classroom and utilizing varied materials or classroom spaces.  Lessons contain a manipulative or visual aid. Most lessons will be accompanied by a visual representation of the content, whether it is a learning tool or organizational method for information.  Most learning is done in small groups. Collaborative learning is promoted allowing students to feed off of each other’s knowledge and grow from the collection and discovery of information among group workers.  Students presented with problem solving situations. Promotes ability to work through real-life scenarios and transfer their knowledge to practical applications.  Minimum teacher involvement. Students are encouraged to lead classroom practices and use teachers as a guiding tool, not an answer to all questions. Direct Instruction  Explicit and concise set of lesson instructions, written or dictated.  Classroom is a whole group-learning environment. Students are all learning the same material, at the same time, through the same mediums.  Promotes the teacher as the main source of information. Teachers will ask frequent questions for understanding and students will follow the teacher as a model of work expectation.  Lessons will involve repetition and continual practice of learned facts. Direct instruction promotes traditional and procedural skills, practicing automaticity and transfer.  Feedback is immediate. Most problems contain a “right or wrong” answer and skills are practiced to mastery.

 Mixed Methods study- Surveys and Observation  To analyze data- I selected two classes of the same grade/academic level (6 th grade, students each)  Taught one class using inquiry instruction methods (blue) and the other using direct instruction methods (yellow)  Surveys asking questions based on class experience Data Analysis

 More students from the inquiry-based group (blue) felt a strong connection and engagement with the material in their lessons  Blue group more open to putting comments in the sections provided at the bottom of the survey and answered very highly on questions involving attitude, understanding, and confidence  Direct instructions-based classroom (yellow), more students answered “Neutral” feelings towards each statement, and did not have much to offer in the comments section  Direct instruction student put that their favorite thing about the lesson was that “It was not crazy crazy boring” Results

“Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Neutral, Agree, Strongly Agree” “I understand the content of today’s lesson.” Strongly Agree: Blue 58% Yellow 47% “I enjoyed today’s lesson.” Strongly Agree: Blue 58% Yellow 25% “I felt good about myself as a learner in today’s lesson.” Strongly Agree: Blue 47% Neutral: Yellow 47% Yellow group was always asking “Why aren’t we doing what the Blue group is doing?”

 Does instruction type affect academic performance?  Do certain subjects allow more opportunities for inquiry or direct instruction?  How can we find out what type students prefer before engaging in learning? Remaining Questions

Limitations  Time  Materials available  New teacher may create bias

 Classroom Instruction involving student engagement or inquiry based style has a positive effect on attitude and motivation.  Recommendations for educational practice: include both forms of instructions in the classroom  If I were to redesign my research, I would do a longer study that measured academic performance as well as motivation with fewer students. Conclusion

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