How the concept of Epistemic Inquiry can help plan a science curriculum

Bringing CASE in from the cold -how is it going? by Natasha Serret from Nottingham Trent University, Lets Think Forum Council and  Alex Black of the Lets Think Forum Council bit.ly/ase26nsab

After a very brief introduction of ourselves and the Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education (CASE) we illustrated how a very common and pressing teaching problem namely;

How do I get my students to control Variables when setting up investigations? could be fruitfully addressed by the learning involved in the first 5 lessons of CASE.

We simulated together the lesson Roller Ball moving through the concrete preparation, producing cognitive conflict and resolving this with group discussions. Natasha then explored how the lesson had raised questions about our own thinking, with several metacognitive scaffold prompts. Then we had a wide ranging discussion of how such learning could be bridged to a large variety of curriculum areas. 

To conclude we explored the data that showed a large gap between student cognitive readiness (largely concrete operational) and the demands (largely formal operational and abstract reasoning) of the science curriculum.

The presentation concluded with a  wider discussion of the new development being made using CASE pedagogical framework to meet the contemporary challenges of science learning.

"Epistemic Inquiry" by Alex Black of the Lets Think Forum Council was a presentation on integrating the exploration of Big questions, using simple sharable stimuli to elicit ideas that could then be monitored, evaluated and lead to improved models of understanding.

bit.ly/ase26abei

The presentation grounds its premise with a quote from David Ausubel, emphasizing that the learner's existing knowledge is the most crucial factor influencing new learning. It then introduced key frameworks for epistemic inquiry, including the four 'big questions' by Kind and Osborne (What exists? How do things happen? How do we come to know? What can we do with the knowledge?) and Hodson’s three goals for science education (Learning science, Learning about science, Doing Science). The discussion also briefly touches upon Karl Popper's concept of the Three Worlds where physical stimuli would elicit subjective experience and ideas which world then be explored by social discussions about predictions and explanations. The goal was to socially construct scientific models of understanding.

The use of the pedagogy of Cognitive Acceleration  (C.A.S.E.) as the method for teaching epistemic inquiry was introduced and enacted in the lesson simulation. The five pillars of C.A.S.E. are outlined: Concrete Preparation, Cognitive Conflict, Social Construction, with an increased emphasis on Metacognition, and Bridging.

The active involvement in lesson simulation illustrated this pedagogy:

1. Earth/Moon Observations: Focuses on Concrete Preparation and generating cognitive conflict through questions about celestial observations, followed by metacognitive scaffolding.

2. Copper and Wood Blocks: Used the difference in how ice melts on copper versus wood to create cognitive conflict and lead to the social construction of an explanation about thermal systems.

3. Genetics and Evolution (Wolves): Explores inheritance and natural selection using case studies like bi-racial twins and the distribution of black and grey wolves in North America pose questions about what exists and how things happen.

Finally, the presentation concluded by examining the prerequisites for strong scientific argumentation highlighting the need for shared evidence, epistemic motivation, social critique, metacognitive regulation, and transferable heuristics.