Her class mildly engaged students in investigation (or
problem solving). The class did not provide an environment where students either could challenge ideas or could
pose their questions. For example, she mostly gave students
directions and students followed. Even though she let
students work on their own to do background research, she
provided the questions that students needed to answer and
also gave the scoring rubric to them. This indicated that
she set up standards for students to complete their work.
For example, she said, ‘‘Guys, the answers will not come
out from the computer directly. You need to do some
reading and combine the information with your own ideas,
and that is what I want to see in the answers.’’ Therefore,
her students rarely (almost never) asked higher-level
questions during the class. Based on the documentation
of the whole unit, it is reasonable to assume that because of
the emphasis of the design cycle and the hands on nature of
this project, this observation was not representative Kathy’s
teaching style in all situations.