Content Standard: B-Physical Science: Light, Heat, Electricity, and Magnetism
Benchmarks:
Electricity in circuits can produce light, heat, sound, and magnetic effects;
Electrical circuits require a complete loop through which an electrical current can pass.
Learning Goals:
Students will understand that a circuit is a complete loop where electric current can pass (so it can therefore be created with just one wire).
Formative Assessment:
"Kirsten has a battery and a small bulb. She wonders how many strips of wire she will need to connect the battery and the bulb so that the bulb will light. What is the SMALLEST NUMBER of wire strips Kirsten needs to make the bulb light up? Explain your answer."
Most of the students in our class thought the answer was 2 wires, but the real answer is actually 1 wire. Most of us know how to create a simple series circuit by attaching one wire to the positive side of the battery and another wire to the negative side of the battery and attaching both to the lighbulb.
Learning Performance:
The strengths of the learning performance used in the "Exploring Together" worksheet are that the students are making all the circuits and identifying the differences (see the 1st three pictures below). However, this lab is weak in its inquiry because students are told exactly what to do and don't get a chance to explore on their own.
The strength of the learning performance used in the "Exploring Independenly" worksheet is that it provides much more room for exploration. We had to figure out on our own how to create a circuit using just one wire (4th picture). However, this worksheet still does not meet all the requirements of inquiry. How to create this one wire circuit wasn't necessarily meaningful to the students because the question was provided by the teacher.
Simple Circuit (Exploring Together lab)
Series Circuit (Exploring Together Lab)
Parallel Circuit (Exploring Together lab)
Circuit Using One Wire (Exloring Independently lab)
Reflection:
I thought that the description of Ms. Travis's classroom in the article was a very good example of inquiry. She did a great job starting the students off with an experiment to build their knowledge base. It was a more basic experiment, but she did not tell them exactly what to do like Ms. Stone did. She did a lot more scaffolding instead of outright telling the students the answer. Ms. Travis's lessons on electricity were closer to the "Exploring Independently" lab we did in class, and Ms. Stone's lessons were like the "Exploring Together" lab. However, neither lab from class was as inquiry-based as Ms. Travis' lessons. She moved more towards the student-centered side of inquiry by letting students ask their own questions about electricity. Each group was carrying out a separate experiment, and they were able to share their findings with the class. I especially liked how she tied environmental problems into the lesson through fluorescent bulbs. This would be a great way to make the communication of results much more meaningful.
I think it would also be beneficial to start this inquiry lesson with the idea of fluorescent bulbs using less energy because kids are often very interested in the environment. This would get students engaged because they could be guided to ask their own question: "how do we know that incandescent light bulbs use more energy?" They could collect their evidence through developing their own experiments with different variables, explain their data through charts and graphs, evaluate it by looking at other sources or hearing from an expert, and then finally communicate it by giving persuasive presentations to parents about why they should use fluorescent bulbs or sending letters to companies. Being able to develop their own experiments would require the students to be very comfortable with inquiry, however. Ms. Travis's method is helpful because it gives the students more structure.
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