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As a first year teacher at West Windsor
Plainsboro High School North, I have had the freedom to pursue inquiry based
learning as my means of educating. The
most effective method I have used is the ISLE cycle, Investigative Science
Learning Environment. ISLE is a guided
discovery teaching method in which the facilitator creates an environment in
which the students can discover various concepts of physics on their own and
then apply this knowledge to construct other concepts. Lessons build upon the knowledge they have
constructed and motivate students to further investigate phenomenon. In my classroom I started right away
with ISLE with a very memorable lesson I witnessed while studying at In this way, the simple yet seemingly
unscientific activity creates an ISLE cycle that parallels the thought
process of scientists who do research in astrophysics. The students start with an observation or
real world phenomenon and then try to explain this phenomenon. Following this explanation, the students
then use logic and hypothetical-deductive reasoning to attempt to disprove
their ideas by making a prediction based on their explanation. The students can then “perform” the
experiment and then make a judgment about whether or not they were correct,
possibly and most likely, revising their explanation to return to the start
of the cycle and try to disprove again.
A particularly memorable day for me was
when my students were studying While I would love units to run as
smoothly as the Knowing that the students are going to
find a particular concept hard is key to being able
to prepare something that they will get “hooked” in by. Often times I like to include something
cool and tell the students by the end of class they will be able to explain
what happened and why. Looking back at
this year, I am proud to say I did this the best with electric fields. I showed video clips to my students of a car
being struck by lighting, but the people inside were not harmed. The fact this was cognitively dissonant
event got the entire class interested in what was happening. The student motivation soared and I was
able to motivate the students to work hard on figuring out a concept many of
my colleagues told me was very difficult for students. Besides motivation, the other hardest
thing to work around is the differences in levels of ability. I wanted to be able to challenge my
stronger students but at the same time not lose the students who had
particular weaknesses. The Group
aspect of ISLE is great for this since students who are weaker in certain
areas are able to get help from students who are stronger in those areas. It is very rewarding to see these students
working together to improve and impressive still to see these students start
to use the same methods in helping each other that I use myself when
teaching! Although group work is a good way for
weaker students to improve, it is also important to offer extra ways for
students to practice their skills. A friend of mine and fellow ISLE teacher,
Chris D’amato, shared with me a table/steps method
of helping students work through problems.
I added and modified problems to the work he sent me and used it with
my struggling students. I noticed
there was a huge change in their moral and interest in the subject after they
had more experience and practice with the structured methods of problem
solving and some of my students who used to be weak are now the strongest in
the class. With this success I was
inspired to construct useful practice formats for all of my students in other
units such as ray Diagrams in geometrical optics. |
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EARNING
