Ch. 1 of my Research Proposal

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

"If a single word had to be chosen to describe the goals of science educators

during the 30-year period that began in the late 1950s, it would have to be

INQUIRY." (DeBoer, 1991, p. 206).

The Inquiry-based approach to teaching science seeks to engage the student in the investigative nature of science. Using this approach, more emphases are placed on the process of gathering information, converting data to scientific knowledge, and using scientific knowledge in the resolution of problems. In an article by Haury entitled, ‘Teaching Science Through Inquiry’ published in 1993, he observed that “some have emphasized the active nature of student involvement, associating inquiry with ‘hands-on’ learning and experiential or activity-based instruction. Others have linked inquiry with a discovery approach or with development of process skills associated with ‘the scientific method.’ Though these various concepts are interrelated, inquiry-oriented instruction is not synonymous with any of them.” In essence, what this approach does is to make the student an active participant in his or her education by learning science the way science is done.

The inquiry-based approach to teaching science takes on a new dimension though, when confined within the framework of a Transformative Science Curriculum like the curriculum adopted at Berea Arts and Sciences High School. In a dissertation proposal that Mr. Aurelio Ramos - the President of BASHS - wrote in 2005, he qualified the Berea Transformative Curriculum as one that “is centered on the learner and has three areas of concentration: Knowledge, character, and service. Transformation occurs as the individual learner moves from where he is – brought there by the level of knowledge acquired in grade school, the qualities and behavior developed in childhood, and the orientation to service (whether or not this exists) learned in his social environment – to where he has the potential to be. In all three areas, education is holistic. Thus, the curriculum content stimulates both analytic (left) and global (right) parts of the brain; values training is incorporated in all subjects; and service becomes a curricular as against wholly an extra curricular part of the academic program.”

The idea behind the integration of an inquiry-based approach to teaching science in the Berea transformative Curriculum is an attempt to provide the curriculum with a concrete platform on which the curriculum’s implementation can take effect. Traditionally, science is taught according to the Pragmatist approach propounded upon by Dewey. Students are made to work out a laboratory exercise that has been pre-designed with procedures that the students can just follow. After the exercise the students are asked what conclusions they can draw out from the activity. These are anticipated conclusions considering that the process of gathering interpretation is packaged by the pre-designed procedures to encapsulate a more or less predictable outcome. There is a gap here between the acquisition of scientific knowledge and the source from which such knowledge has emanated and was processed. To this end, adjustments can be reflected on, such that the students’ transformation is genuinely anchored on the actual practice of science. That is, they learn science through the scientific method.

As both the Inquiry-Based Approach to teaching science and the Berea

Model of Transformative Science Curriculum are recognizably multifaceted and

differently situated, it is considered that inquiry in this regard, which is taken as

an attempt to carry out the teaching of science in a manner with which it is

practiced through the scientific method, may take on a different dimension when

confined in the Transformative Science Curriculum. Thus considered, can the

Inquiry-Based Approach to teaching science - which saw widespread

implementation in the early ‘90s - be implemented and applied to the Berean

experience and still touch on the constructivist models of learning, complemented

to varying degrees by project-based teaching and problem-based instruction?

The key questions subsumed in this proposal are: (1) how can Inquiry-Based

Approach to science teaching be implemented in the framework of a

Transformative Curriculum in Science? (2) what are possible implications that

may arise from its implementation? and (3) how can Inquiry-Based Approach to

teaching science using the Transformative Curriculum translate more effectively

to scientific knowledge?

During the 1990s, a number of science education initiatives were undertaken to

reform high school science teaching to reflect strategies from the latest research and to enable more students to attain a higher level of scientific literacy. (Dean

Goodwin, 1996).

Science can be taught in a wide range of settings, from a regular classroom to a state-of-the-art facility dedicated to science instruction. All of these learning environments, though, should have several common features to facilitate quality science instruction. (Dan Butin, July 2000).

At PSHS, where Science is taught taking into consideration both depth and breadth, laboratory exercises play central role in the educative process and are complemented only by lectures or facilitations. At PSHS, Dewey’s Pragmatist approach defines, for the most part, the teaching of science. And there is no question as to its efficacy on the basis of student achievement. At Berea Arts and Science High School where I work now, much of the PSHS science curriculum is revised and incorporated in its Transformative Curriculum framework. At BASHS, Science is taught following a little of Dewey’s Pragmatist approach and a little of the Progressivist approach.

BASHS is only on its second year of operation. As it is a new school - and the

first of its kind in the country, we are still in the initial stages of conceptualizing

what features – in terms of special course offerings, are necessary to beef up our

curriculum with and with the end-in-view of improving student achievement within

the framework of a Transformative curriculum.

In this proposal, the idea of studying the implications of confining the teaching of science within a Transformative curriculum on student achievement is considered. The idea behind this proposal is that while right-brained students are achieving well in schools for the arts like the Philippine High School for the Arts and that the same level of achievement is noted with left-brained students who are enrolled in science schools like the PSHS, can holistic education for either left-brained or right-brained students, like that being offered at BASHS approximate the same or higher level of achievement?

B. Statement of the Problem

This study seeks to determine whether integrating an inquiry-based approach to teaching transformative science improve the performance of students. Also, this study aims to provide an insight into possible avenues of effectively implementing transformative science and enriching the curriculum. To which end, the following questions are considered: (1) how can Inquiry-Based Approach to science teaching be implemented in the framework of a Transformative Curriculum in Science? (2) what are possible implications that may arise from its implementation? and (3) how can Inquiry-Based Approach to teaching science using the Transformative Curriculum translate more effectively to scientific knowledge?

C. Significance of the Study

If the study is able to show that the integration of an inquiry-based approach to the teaching of science in a transformative curriculum framework results to a significantly higher student achievement and better performance, then new insights may be reintroduced to refine the transformative curriculum of Berea and make it more responsive to the needs of students who are endowed with both logical and global inclinations.

If proved that inquiry-based approach to teaching science is able to complement the Berean transformative curriculum, then students will be benefited hugely first, for the transformation that the curriculum seeks to equip them with in preparation for college life.

D. Scope and Delimitations of the Study

This proposed study touches only on the relationship between an inquiry-based approach to teaching science and the Berea transformative curriculum. The object of this study is to determine whether such relationship impacts significantly on the science performance of the students. As such, this proposal is limited only to the Berean experience with no reference at any attempt to compare the efficacy of an inuiry-based approach to teaching science used in different schools with different curricular offerings.