In week nine a class of 14-year-old school
students visited the university and were divided into
small groups. Students were allocated a group of
schoolchildren that they had to teach in an inquirybased
way for an hour. The schoolchildren were
eager to participate in an interesting diversion from
normal lessons. This exercise proved extremely
useful for the students as it allowed them to confront
some of the difficulties with inquiry-based science
teaching. A variety of different ideas for inquirybased
lessons were taught, including ‘the behavior of
stick-insects,’ ‘can mice follow mazes?’ and ‘which
parts of the tongue taste can taste what?’
The final session was a summary session.
First the teaching from the previous week was
discussed and evaluated as part of a class discussion,
and this was followed up with a discussion about the
course in general with final thoughts from the tutors
and students.