Synergistic Inquiry

Inquiry learning (also known as discovery learning)¹ is an educational method that “places responsibility on the students to pose hypotheses, design experiments, make predictions…decide how to analyze results…and so on”.² Several authors have attempted to define and describe the characteristics of inquiry learning in the science classroom.^3,4

It is commonly assumed that higher levels of inquiry are achieved as student control over the experimental process increases. For example, Buck, Bretz, and Towns have categorized inquiry-based lessons by the level of autonomy that students experience as they carry out investigations (Table 1).³ According to these authors, the level of inquiry attained in lessons can be determined by deciding if it is the student or teacher that poses questions, uncovers relevant theory and concepts, develops procedures, analyzes and communicates results, and draws conclusions (Table 1).

Table 1: Levels of Inquiry Characterized by Buck, Bretz, and Towns.³

Types of Inquiry Learning

Evidence suggests that inquiry-based learning provides many benefits to students, including increased motivation, learning outcomes, and appreciation of science.^1-4 It is argued that students learn how to “do science”² by participating in inquiry-based activities. It is therefore no surprise that many educators argue that students should be pushed to engage in higher levels of inquiry as much as possible. Indeed, (as noted by Cooper)⁵ the Science and Engineering Practices (Table 2) of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)⁶ are essentially the same as characteristics of inquiry outlined by Buck, Bretz, and Towns.

Table 2: NGSS Science and Engineering Practices and Associated Characteristics of Inquiry delineated by Buck, Bretz, and Towns.

It is important to note that many authors – including those who champion the practice of inquiry learning – point out exposing students to “higher levels” of inquiry can be counterproductive.^1,7-9 For example, ample research shows that students given complete freedom over all aspects of the learning process (similar to authentic inquiry, Table 1) ultimately learn very little.⁹ On the other hand, inquiry-based approaches in which the teachers provide support (similar to structured, guided, or open inquiry, Table 1) appear to lead to the greatest gains in learning.⁹ Therefore, students need a great deal of support as they progress towards higher levels of inquiry learning.^7-9

Synergistic Inquiry

I often use inquiry learning in my classes, and when doing so I attempt to guide my students towards increased independence as they conduct their experiments. However, consistent with the concerns outlined in the previous paragraph, I have begun to wonder if it is always beneficial to push students toward greater autonomy as they carry out scientific explorations. Therefore, I have begun to explore an approach wherein I work alongside my students as they carry out inquiry-based experiences that call upon the science and engineering practices (Table 2). Thus, my students and I work together to solve problems in an approach I call synergistic inquiry. Simply put, synergistic inquiry occurs when students and teachers cooperate in an attempt to answer questions. In the science classroom, this means the student and teacher work together to pose questions and attempt to answer them. I want to be clear: I am not suggesting that synergistic inquiry is a new educational method. Science teachers have been informally using this approach for a very long time. Rather, in this article I intend to describe and characterize synergistic inquiry as a valid educational tool, to contextualize it within the scope of inquiry-based methods, to propose its use as a way to prepare students for (and engage students in) valuable inquiry learning, and to provide helpful tips to teachers who wish to implement synergistic inquiry in their classrooms.

Synergistic inquiry changes the emphasis from having students “do science” to experiencing the process that people undergo when they train to become scientists. The focus is not so much on having students carry out all of the characteristics of inquiry on their own, without the input of the teacher, but rather using all the characteristics of inquiry – along with their teacher – to attempt to answer questions. Table 3 (below) indicates that synergistic inquiry contains all the characteristics of inquiry, but that the student and teacher cooperate in carrying out these tasks.

The process of synergistic inquiry is carried out during the training of scientists. For example, when I was training to be a professional chemist, I worked under the tutelage of advisors who were experts in their area of study. My advisors helped me to learn the theory required to understand and analyze experiments within the field. They taught me how to conduct various experiments, to ask relevant questions, and to design and implement experiments intended to answer those questions. They helped me analyze results and to draw conclusions from those results. As I gained confidence and a bit of expertise in the lab, I moved from being a “student” of my advisors to a colleague that worked alongside them with the common goal of solving various problems. It was only after several years of working with these experts that I was able to formulate questions and design experiments independently. The point of relating this experience of mine is to stress that I didn’t learn to become an independent researcher – or to “do” science –by making certain that I independently worked on problems, designed experiments, analyzed results, and proposed conclusions. Rather, I learned how to do independent research by working alongside those who were doing independent research. In this vein, I have found that many of my students in my classes capture a glimpse of how the scientific process plays out by working alongside me and with their own classmates as together we attempt to use chemistry to gain insight into the workings of various phenomena.

Table 3: In Synergistic Inquiry, students, peers, and teachers participate together throughout the experimental process in an attempt to answer questions. This table is a modified version of that presented in Buck, Bretz, and Towns, Journal of Science Teaching (2008).

Comparison of Synergistic Inquiry with Other Types of Inquiry Learning

How might synergistic inquiry be implemented in the classroom?

I often require my students to investigate scientific questions as part of regular coursework, setting apart several laboratory periods specifically for exploratory work. These investigations are typically carried out during the latter part of a course. Students are required to give presentations (either poster or oral) to their classmates at the conclusion after the work is completed (see Appendix for a guide I give students to assist in constructing these presentations). I have used this approach in courses that span a wide range of sophistication: science for non-majors, introductory chemistry, general chemistry, analytical chemistry, and physical chemistry.

To begin the process, I ask students to individually meet with me to discuss experimental ideas. Students often have an idea of what they would like to study, but I almost always provide input. Many times I do not know what the outcome of the investigation will be. For example, I once had a student remark that she wished to determine if cooking foods in the microwave oven adversely affected the nutritional content of foods. Given the broad nature of her query, I suggested we try to answer a more specific, but related question. I recommended we determine if heating orange juice in the microwave oven diminished the content of ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) in the juice. Thus, the student and I worked together to frame a question. She provided the impetus for what she wished to study, and I used my expertise to guide her into a chemical problem that could potentially be answered within a reasonable number of laboratory periods. This is a key idea of synergistic inquiry: the instructor acts as a consultant, providing expertise to help students throughout the entire scientific process.

Role of the teacher in synergistic inquiry 

Thus, the teacher plays the role of an expert consultant when synergistic inquiry is used in the classroom. Teachers should provide opinions on student-proposed experiments, models, and conclusions. Teachers should point out to students when conclusions display flawed reasoning or misapplication of scientific principles. This does not mean the student should always take the advice of the teacher. In almost all cases, I allow students to carry out proposed experiments that I think won’t work or are otherwise poorly designed. Some of my favorite moments occur when my students demonstrate that I am wrong (yes, this happens). If a student and I disagree on a particular model or conclusion, we try to envision and carry out experiments that – when completed and analyzed – will resolve the disagreement.

I generally find that students need assistance determining how to conduct and monitor experiments in a quantitative manner. I therefore routinely ask students to envision ways to carry out experiments that lead to the creation of graphs: Does varying some measurable parameter cause a change in another measurable phenomenon? The most common variables we manipulate are temperature or concentration of some substance. Sometimes students figure out how to do this on their own, other times I come up with ideas for them. Also, students often need help designing and recognizing the value of control experiments. In the orange juice experiment mentioned earlier we obviously tested the Vitamin C content of orange juice that had – and had not – been microwaved. However, as an additional control we tested the Vitamin C content of a solution of known concentration of ascorbic acid in water. Another good control would have been to measure the Vitamin C content of a sample of orange juice that had been heated on a stove top rather than in the microwave.

Also, students often need to be prompted to carry out multiple trials and to statistically analyze results. For example, in our orange juice experiment, my student reported to me that she found 12.2 mg of Vitamin C in a sample of fresh orange juice, but only 11.9 mg of Vitamin C in a sample of microwaved orange juice. On the basis of these observations she concluded that microwaving removed some of the Vitamin C from the orange juice. I suggested that she run additional trials and compute standard deviations of the results. After running 5 samples each, she found that 12.1 ± 0.5 mg and 12.2 ± 0.3 mg of Vitamin C was present in fresh and microwaved orange juice, respectively. Thus, after running several trials and statistically analyzing the result, her conclusion was that within experimental error, microwaving orange juice does not change its Vitamin C content.

The teacher also helps students deal with failure. Students often get frustrated when they can’t build a desired project or when an experiment does not achieve an anticipated result. I like to tell my students “I have never had a failed experiment – only new observations”. In essence, failure is not possible. I try to impress upon students that when scientists are doing their best, they don’t really “want” a desired outcome. Ultimately, what we “want” is to observe, describe, and explain what is really happening. Thus, I encourage students to do exactly that: report exactly what they did, exactly what they saw, and try to explain why they got the observed result. I inform students that I will very likely use their observations to try again in the future, and knowing what has already been attempted is extremely helpful in moving forward and designing new experiments. Consistent with this attitude, students are not graded on whether their experiments are “successful” or not. Rather, heavy emphasis is placed on specific and complete reporting of experimental procedures, the presentation of experimental data, and the agreement between the conclusions drawn and the evidence presented.

Ideas for investigations

Coming up with individual experiments for all students is a difficult task. One way to alleviate this problem is to have students work in groups of two or more. Over the years I have found some guidelines that are helpful in dreaming up experiments for students. Simply asking a student what it is that they want to study (again, with my input) sometimes generates fantastic ideas. I have also had students repeat experiments found in the Journal of Chemical Education, posted on ChemEdX, or attempted in previous years by former students. When repeating experiments, we try to figure out ways to tweak or extend what has already been done. Because of this, my students and I have worked on some questions over the course of several years with multiple, different students working on the same general question. Thus, new batches of students build upon the results of past generations of students – much in the same way that the scientific endeavor plays out. I often want to make improvements to demonstrations or laboratory experiments that I use in class. Having students work on these improvements makes for great project ideas. Exploring the interface between chemistry and art or cooking is a favorite of students. For example, I have had students use anthocyanin from cabbage juice at different pH levels as the only colorant for a “painting” or “drawing”. Students have generated some impressive artwork using this idea (Figure 1), but we have yet to figure out how to keep the colors from fading over time (yes, this is another question my students have explored). Finally, finding ways to connect experiments to a student’s career aspirations or favorite sport works well. My favorite example of this was when a student who was a pole vaulter tested the amount of bend his pole experienced at different temperatures. To prepare the pole at different temperatures, he incubated the pole in a rain gutter filled with water at different temperatures.

Drawing colored with anthocyanin pigments

Figure 1: Drawing colored using anthocyanin with cabbage juice at different pH. Artwork by Michael Tebo.

What are some benefits of synergistic inquiry?

Over the years I have noticed that students take a great deal of ownership in their projects, often working double or triple the time I require for in-laboratory work. Students routinely work on experiments outside of normal class time. This implies that experiments involving synergistic inquiry increase student motivation and interest in science. I regularly observe students informally communicating with each other about their experiments. They explain project details to others, brainstorm possible experiments to carry out, and discuss the merits of various explanations for observations. Because I require all students to work on different questions, students become exposed to a wide variety of inquiry-based explorations through their conversations. Furthermore, I often incorporate experiments and results that past students have achieved when presenting various chemical concepts during lecture. By doing this, students are exposed to the thinking involved during inquiry-based experimentation throughout the entire school year. While I have not collected data on this, it seems that as I tell the stories of discovery and experimental work from past students, my current students begin to believe that they, too can do real science.

Conclusion

One of the primary goals of teaching is to move students toward greater independence. As a result, we teachers tend to see the various levels of inquiry (Table 1) as a hierarchy, where structured inquiry < guided inquiry < open inquiry < authentic inquiry. It is therefore natural for us to want our students to be in charge of all aspects of exploratory work. However, we must be careful not to give students too much freedom before they are ready: students must learn to walk before they can run. Indeed, research shows that inquiry-based work leads to the most learning gains when students experience a balance of structure and freedom.^1,9 Recognizing this, some chemistry teachers have described how to properly prepare students to engage in inquiry in the chemistry classroom.^7,8 Building upon this work, I have endeavored herein to describe a process I call synergistic inquiry, in which chemistry teachers guide students in inquiry-based investigations by working with them. Synergistic inquiry frees the teacher from worrying about helping students too much as they approach scientific questions: the teacher and student help each other to solve scientific problems. In this sense, it allows the teacher to help students engage with inquiry-based explorations “at their own pace”. In my experience, some students need a lot of help along every step of the way, while other students need very little assistance. Synergistic inquiry also frees students and teachers from the constraints of worrying about what level of inquiry has been attained, and to instead to just do science. Like all inquiry learning, synergistic inquiry demystifies scientific practices (and the scientific method itself) by inviting students to participate in them. However, it also emulates the process of how people become scientists. In my opinion, the best part of using synergistic inquiry is that it transforms my classroom into a team of human beings who work together to explore the many wonders of the physical world.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the reviewers of this manuscript for their expertise and helpful suggestions. I would also like to thank the many students I have worked with over the years, who have allowed me to learn, explore, and question so much more than I could by myself.

References

1. Kirschner, P.A.; Sweller, J.; Clark, R. E. Educational Psychologist, 2006, 41, 75-86.

2. French, D.; Russell, C. BioScience, 2002, 51, 1036-1180.

3. Buck, L. B.; Bretz, S. L.; Towns, M. H. Journal of College Science Teaching, 2008, 38, 52-58.

4. Fay, M. E.; Grove, N. P.; Towns, M. H.; Bretz, S. L.; Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 2007, 8, 212-219.

5. Cooper, M. M. Journal of Chemical Education, 2013, 90, 679-680.

6. The Next Generation Science Standards https://www.nextgenscience.org/

7. Criswell, B. Journal of Chemical Education, 2012, 89, 199-205.

8. Buck, L.B.; Towns, M. H. Journal of Chemical Education, 2009, 86, 820-822.

9. Mayer, R. E. American Psychologist, 2004, 59, 14-19.

Appendix - Presentation guidelines