MODEL: INQUIRY

For Social Studies

OBJECTIVES: Students study and do research as social scientists who learn about social studies issues through hypotheses, data collection, and testing.

MATERIALS: These will vary with your issue, but usually paper and pencils.

PLANNING:
1. Find an issue that has to do with studentsí lives: social or environmental issues, opinions, patterns of living, habits, trends. It must be an issue about which your students can really gather data, at school or in the community, or by research. Either select an issue students have been talking about, or bring an issue to their attention.

2. Decide how the INQUIRY will be managed (individuals, small groups, whole class.)

3. Follow the steps of the INQUIRY model with your students.

STEPS OF THE MODEL


 
SET Talk with students about the issue. Introduce the idea of INQUIRY. 

LESSON 

1. Awareness of the problem: Discuss the issue with the class. Example: students might be complaining about too much homework. Monitor student interest and awareness. If there is enough interest and awareness, go on. If not, pick another issue.

2. Definition of the problem: Help students clearly state the issue in terms that make sense to the students. Try to look at the issue from as many perspectives as possible. Example: Students are complaining of doing more homework than the district requires.

3. Hypothesize: Come to a tentative conclusion about the facts of the matter, a hypothesis. It must be testable by gathering data or performing an experiment (that is not harmful or intrusive or objectionable to anyone involved. Decide on a single hypothesis to test. You can always do others later. Example: We think that at least 50% of our 6th graders are spending more time on their homework each week than the district requires.

4. Test/Gather data: Decide how to gather the data and who will do it. Decide on a target population. Decide how much data you will need and when and it will be done. Remind students that it is just as valuable to prove a hypothesis wrong as it is to prove it correct. As you design your survey, remember that people donít always tell the truth, so try to get the information as directly as possible. Example: Students design a questionnaire to take home to parents of all 6th graders. It asks how many hours their child spent on homework each day of the past week.

5. Conclude: Students tally the collected data, perform calculations, and come to a conclusion about whether their hypothesis was correct. EXAMPLE: We discovered that our district mandates 1 1/2 hours a night for 6th grade, and that only 22% of our students did that much homework last week. Our hypothesis was proven wrong.

6. Discuss what you now know and donít know: Talk about the successes and limits of your INQUIRY. Sometimes this leads to further INQUIRY. EXAMPLE: Students decide that last weekís work was light, so they want to survey for 2 weeks.

EVALUATION: Remember that even though your project was successful, you donít know which students really understood and profited. You could end the INQUIRY by all students writing what they learned, how they feel about the conclusions, and what they might want to inquire about next. You could also ask questions about the process.
 

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