Inquiry Pedagogy and the Preservice Science Teacher By Lisa Mar ...

Chapter 2

Background Study

Introduction

The National Science Education Standards (NSES) (National Research Council [NRC], 1996) cited three ways of viewing inquiry. Scientific inquiry refers to the things that scientists do when investigating their questions. They study the natural world, proposing explanations based on the evidence derived from their work. Inquiry as student learning is where students use the inquiry process in their learning, closely mirroring the process of scientific inquiry. Inquiry as pedagogy refers to when the teacher uses an inquiry approach for students to learn content objectives.

This research focuses most directly upon inquiry as pedagogy in the preservice teachers’ experiences where students in a science classroom are engaged in open-ended, student-centered,