The Right Stuff: Inquiry Training, Teaching & Transfer for Content Mastery in the Sciences

Abstract

The standardized testing movement has inadvertently placed pressure on elementary and secondaryinstructors to teach to the test. Primarily this is manifested through memorization and testing skillstraining and less on developing content mastery and problem solving. Hands-on activities (alsoreferred to as inquiry learning) are lauded by the literature as an effective methodology in thedevelopment of content mastery (Akerson, V., Hanson, D., & Cullen, T.; NSF, 2010; Smith, T.,Desimone, L., Zeidner, T., Dunn, A., Bhatt, M. & Rumyantseva, N., 2007). Nevertheless, administratorsoften see the inquiry method as an ineffective use of classroom and training time diverting attentionaway from test preparation. The research abounds, however, regarding the positive influence hands-on/inquiry-based learning can have on testing results (Cuevas, P., Lee, O., Hart, J. & Deaktor, R., 2005;Marx, R., Blumenfeld, P. C., Krajcik, J., Fishman, B., Solomay, E., Geier, R. & Tal, R. T., 2004; Stohr-Hunt, P. M., 1996; Ruby, A., 2006; and Ashman, S., 2007).