Historical Perspectives On Inquiry Teaching In Schools

There is a tendency to treat inquiry teaching as if it were something new and innovative, a recently invented approach to science teaching. But in one form or another, inquiry teaching has been part of the educational landscape at least since the middle of the nineteenth century (Bybee and DeBoer, 1994; DeBoer, 2001). The purpose of this chapter is to review the history of inquiry teaching to clarify the various meanings that this pedagogical approach has had. The term “scientific inquiry” will be used to refer to the general process of investigation that scientists use as they attempt to answer questions about the natural world, and the term “inquiry teaching” will be used to refer to pedagogical approaches that model aspects of scientific inquiry. Inquiry teaching mirrors scientific inquiry by emphasizing student questioning, investigation, and problem solving. Just as scientists conduct their inquiries and investigations in the laboratory, at field sites, in the library, and in discussion with colleagues, students engage in similar activities in inquiry-based classrooms.