Hammer, Inquiring into Inquiry Learning and Teaching in Science (2000)

Teacher inquiry

D. Hammer, in Inquiring into Inquiry Learning and Teaching in Science, J. Minstrell & E. vanZee (Eds), Washington DC: American Association for the Advancement of Scieince, p 184-215 (2000) (Also 1999, In the Paper Series of the Center for the Development of Teaching at EDC, in Newton, MA) (html version)

Abstract: The progessive agendas of science education reform, in particular that of promoting student inquiry, place substantial intellectual demands on teachers. If these reforms are to succeed, the education community must do more to appreciate and address those demands. This paper presents three examples of high school physics teachers' conversations about "snippets" of each others' work with students. The purposes are (1) to hightlight the central role and intellectual demands of teacher inquiry, in particular teacher diagnosis of students' strengths and needs; (2) to suggest that teachers often experience and express their diagnoses in terms of instructional strategies, and (3) to suggest that the value of education research for instruction should be understood primarily with respect to what it may contribute to teacher inquiry.