Third Reflection

1. Take some time to think about your topic. Now write down what you know about it.

According to National Committee on Science Education Standards and Assessment (1992), one goal of science education is "to prepare students who understand the modes of reasoning of scientific inquiry and can use them”. I know that the inquiry based learning is the most effective method of learning where the educators develop many strategies and techniques that promote critical thinking and logical skills in students. The inquiry based instructions by the educators facilitate student engagement in pedagogical perspective. “Inquiry-related teaching effective in fostering scientific literacy and understanding of science processes (Lindberg, 1990), vocabulary knowledge and conceptual understanding (Lloyd & Contreras, 1985, 1987), critical thinking (Narode et al., 1987), positive attitudes toward science (Kyle et al., 1985; Rakow, 1986), higher achievement on tests of procedural knowledge (Glasson, 1989), and construction of logico-mathematical knowledge (Staver, 1986)”.

As the scientific inquiry is a combination of activities and skills, engaging students in a curriculum which introduces lots of innovative resources, practices skills and learning activities are important. In order to facilitate learning inquiry in a productive way, the knowledge in how students engage in an inquiry based learning and different information search process models including ISP model of Kuhlthau, help the educator to be a sharp researcher and guide where they can direct them to find out the possible ways of information on their related inquiry and advocate the ethical use of technology and web tools.

2. How interested are you in this topic? Circle the answer that best matches your interest.

Not at all     Not much      Quite a bit    A lot

3. How much do you know about this topic? Circle the answer that best matches how much you know.

Nothing            Not much           Quite a bit            A lot

4. When you find out information about a topic, what do you generally find easy to do? Please list as many things as you like.
· I find it easy to set up blog and adding text

· I find it easy to use link to attach more information.

· I find it easy to search items using Boolean Operators such as AND , OR , NOT

· I find it easy to get results when use search terms such as inquiry

5. When you find out information about a topic, what do you generally find hard to do? Please list as many things as you like.


· I find it hard to organise information in a sequence which made it difficult to synthesise and co-relate selected information to present into a complete formatted Project.
· It was also complicated to control the flow of information after the reading the course materials and researched materials. As a result, it was hard to limit ideas into paragraphs.
· I find it hard to choose effective search terms as some of them showed no results which made me disappointed

6. What did you learn in doing this project? Please list as many things as you like.
This Project was an inspiring force for dealing with the research tools and developing a deep understanding of the scope of information inquiry. As I know that time limits my inquiry on the topic, I experienced what Kuhlthau’s ISP process is . Because of the limited time, I had to limit my research which resulted in confusion and uncertainty.

· It made me to think about various quick ways of finding relevant information and critically evaluate the information to check the reliability and accessibility.

· It guided me to walk through the steps of Information Search Process where I could reflect by comparing student responses on learning activities and identify my own strengths and weaknesses.

· It provided a basic idea of creating a blog, embedding video and images.

· It enabled to improve my search skills and technical skills.

· The readings and other course materials widen my professional qualities such as my improvement in vocabulary and academic writing skills . It also intensified my potential to form strong information literacy perceptions.

References

National Committee on Science Education Standards and Assessment. (1992). National science education standards: A sampler. Washington, DC: National Research Council.
DL Haury.( 1993) , Teaching Science through Inquiry.
Lindberg, D. H. (1990, Winter). What goes 'round comes 'round doing science. Childhood Education, 67(2), 79-81.

Lloyd, C. V., & Contreras, N. J. (1985, December). The role of experiences in learning science vocabulary. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Reading Conference, San Diego, CA. ED 281 189

Lloyd, C. V., & Contreras, N. J. (1987, October). What research says: Science inside-out. Science and Children, 25(2), 30-31.
Narode, R., et al. (1987). Teaching thinking skills: Science. Washington, DC: National Education Association. ED 320 755

Kyle, W. C., Jr., et al. (1985, October). What research says: Science through discovery: students love it. Science and Children, 23(2), 39-41.

Rakow, S. J. (1986). Teaching science as inquiry. Fastback 246. Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation. ED 275 506

Glasson, G. E. (1989, February). The effects of hands-on and teacher demonstration laboratory methods on science achievement in relation to reasoning ability and prior knowledge. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 26(2), 121-31.

Staver, J. R. (1986, September). The constructivist epistemology of Jean Piaget: Its philosophical roots and relevance to science teaching and learning. Paper presented at the United States-Japan Seminar on Science Education, Honolulu, HI. ED 278 563