Designing and teaching an inquiry-based lesson
For the final sessions of the course, students
worked in groups of three to plan and then teach an
inquiry-based science lesson of their own design to a
small group of 14 year old students. As the students
in our course were training to become teachers, it was
important that they gained real first hand experience
of teaching in an inquiry way. By having to plan and
teach an inquiry lesson themselves the ideas the
students had learned throughout the course were
reinforced.
Two sessions were set aside to allow
students to find an idea and then plan and design their
lessons. Members of the staff were in attendance to
provide useful suggestions or help if difficulties
arose. Students were free to use the sessions how
they wished. Some groups used the time to research
ideas in the library or on the Internet, other groups
used the time as ‘group meeting time’ to discuss the
work they had done individually over the last week,
while some groups tried out and practiced
experiments they thought they could use.