Community, Culture, And Conversation In Inquiry Based Science Instruction

Professional scientific practice focuses on the production of discoveries about the physical world. Traditional perspectives depict this process as a matter of the diligence and skill of scientists in knowing where and how to observe to uncover the secrets of nature. More contemporary views, however, cast knowledge production as a process of invention in which the scientific community ultimately determines whether and what is “discovered.” This is a cultural view; that is, it represents scientific practice as thought and activity patterned in particular ways through the social processes of interaction within a community drawn together by shared values and beliefs. If our current desire is that science instruction provide students with opportunities to learn in ways that mirror the activity of actual scientific communities, which underlies the national standard of inquiry-based science teaching, then contemporary views of the nature of science suggest that we need to think in fundamentally different ways about science instruction.