A Lucky Little Idea

Turning a Lecture into an (Easy) Inquiry Lab

Yesterday I needed my students to walk out the door at the end of the hour, able to name and describe the eight recognized characteristics of life.

Eight- you may be surprised to learn- is a surprisingly difficult number of things to teach to room of fourteen year-olds, in only 59 minutes.  It is hard for them to keep eight ideas in their heads in the first place (me too).

The eight characteristics of life are that, on the species level, all organisms:

1. Are made of cell(s)
2. Reproduce
3. Grow and develop
4. Maintain homeostasis (internal conditions)
5. Respond to stimuli
6. Evolve over time
7. Require energy
8. Are organized (put together in a certain way)

Yikes.

I taught these eight characteristics last year in a strongly didactic fashion.  Students didn't remember more than about three of them.  As an educator, that hurt a little.

Yesterday I did things very differently, because I had a lucky little idea.

I've been collecting and preserving biological specimens of fungi, insects, small plants, even a hummingbird that ran into my sun room window.  Yesterday I amassed my specimens and supplemented them with about two dozen of some common and some truly bizarre preserved organisms from the biology lab.  I placed the jars and my specimens on the lab desks.

When the students came in I delivered my mandate, that they needed to each come up with a list of about eight characteristics that they thought all living things shared.  Their ideas had to be based on observations of the specimens, and their observations might be integrated with things they already knew about living things.

Image source

Image source

Image source

Image source

The Results

I marveled at three results.

First, students were engaged at every moment.  In only a single section did I find one or two loafers; the others were so fascinated that they were almost beside themselves with wonder.  It helped that I placed out a few baffling organisms, such as a few chitons, bristle-worms, yellowish prickly mosses, various Plexiglas-encased insects, some eerily blood-red mushrooms, sea cucumbers, sea jellies, barnacles, leeches, and a few other odd-balls.  Students tended to gather and move about the tables in groups of four to six, and they enjoyed collaborating to come up with ideas.  Many were arguing with passion.

After I gave them about 25 minutes to work, I recalled them to their desks so they could share with the class what they came up with.

Second, the class was able to agree upon 6 of the 8 recognized traits, without ever having learned them beforehand (all except homeostasis and organization).  I then tried to connect their ideas to the "real" eight characteristics of life.  During this discussion, they copied and took a few notes on these eight recognized characteristics.

Lastly, a surprising fraction of students remembered Every. Single. One.

Today I asked students to recall the characteristics of living things, based on this "lab" from yesterday.  They blew me away at what they remembered.  Each section was able to collectively recall each and every characteristic.  Quizzes would honestly be a more accurate means of assessment than just talking, but their memory was still surprising.

All from one lucky little idea.

Inquiry Works Backwards

This is what inquiry does.  Students who create their own knowledge will remember that information.  It is not "known;" it is "understood."  Of course, their self-created understandings need to be validated so they do not become misunderstandings.

Inquiry is "backwards" in the sense that it is the perfect inverse of the traditional science learning experience.  How many times have you had or heard of classes in which students learned the material from a book or lecture, and then went into the lab in order to "apply" it?  My lab was "backwards" in that I threw a task and a tactile, visual learning experience at them, then buttressed it with supplementary discussion and validation.

The Nightmare

If students are not doing something then they are not learning.  If they are not talking to someone then they are not remembering.  If they are not moving somewhere then they are not living.

I see doomed students sometimes.  I see students whose teachers have doomed them before they even had a vague, dark inkling that something was amiss.  

If they are imprisoned in their seats, shackled to an eyes-forward position, lips sewed shut and eyes wired open, scrawling "notes" on a page of paper that they want to tear away, then they are doomed to a hatred of science and discovery, forever.