ABSTRACT
During the next 11 days of instruction, Laura and her class engaged in three cycles of guided inquiry. Within the GIsML orientation, each cycle has four phases: engage, investigate, construct/revise explanations, and report, and these phases are visited recursively as the students create and deepen their understanding of phenomena through different cycles of inquiry. The engagement phase is typified by the teacher’s introduction of the problem context to be explored in a manner that invites students’ interest. The investigation phase is typified by either first-hand (direct experimentation, manipulation, or observation) or second-hand (textual) investigation. Constructing and revising explanations typically takes places in pairs or small groups and may involve close interaction with the teacher. Reporting or “public sharing” involves students presenting their claims to their classmates and responding to questions as the learning community attempts to integrate and make sense of a range of claims about the same phenomenon. Discursive practices are thus important sites for learning within each phase as students attempt to make their thinking visible to others.
