12.3.08

What is inquiry?

What is the difference between inquiry and good science teaching? Is there a difference?

How does that definition help a science teacher think about teaching science as/through inquiry?

How is inquiry (the way to teach science) different than / the same as inquiry (the way to do science)? How do you have to know science differently to teach it than you do to do it? Is there a difference? Is it just being good at explaining it?

How might the definition/enactment of inquiry differ if they are grounded in different traditions of learning theory?

In particular there is a question of control - how much control by the teacher is good? how much can be trusted to the students? how does the ratio change over time? how should it?

How do you reconcile the theory and the practice of inquiry? How do you find support in your school to teach this way? How do you learn to teach this way?

Getting beyond debate and into argumentation.

Thinking that sophisticated technology can replace good teaching.

What is the community of practice in schools and what does it mean to be an LPP in that community? How does change happen in a community like schools?

Are kids getting smarter now that quantum is being taught in undergraduate? Is this an indication that things are going well in schools in terms of science?

A thing that is "inquiry" that is pointed at by lots of words, none of which capture it. The elephant and the blind men.