During the 2005 spring semester, all tenured and tenure-track IU Biology faculty were asked to participate in a study concerning their views of factors that might affect students' abilities to inquire (e.g., to generate, analyze, prioritize, and investigate questions) and to be engaged in their learning.
Results of this study are meant to help faculty and students, at IU and elsewhere, to better understand views of faculty at a research university that may be relevant to the challenge of helping students to improve their inquiry skills and to be genuinely engaged in their learning.
Participants are being asked to respond, each week throughout the semester, to one or two questions-of-the-week about inquiry and/or engagement. Each week's question(s) will be posted below, linked to participants' responses.
Week |
Question |
1 |
What do you suppose might make it difficult for some of our students to generate questions about that which they are asked to learn? |
2 |
What views that students might have of knowledge do you imagine might tend to have
a) a negative effect on their inclinations to become confused and to generate questions versus
b) a positive effect on their inclinations to become confused and to generate questions? |
3 |
What value, if any, do you see in your generating questions about things that you are curious about and want to understand better?
The following is a multiple-choice question. Feel free to add comments, though. In general, I think that it's a good idea to start generating questions about something that I want to learn about
(a) right away (e.g., as soon as I become curious about and decide that I want to learn about that something), or
(b) only when I have learned the basics concerning that something, or
(c) only when I have learned most of what other people already seem to know about that something. |
4 |
How would you rank the relative importance of the following possible roles of our department, concerning undergraduate education? (Which role is most important, which is second-most important, and which is least important?) Why?
(a) Helping students to better appreciate how scientists inquire, when scientists are working to create knowledge for the scientific community,
(b) Helping students, themselves, to get better at inquiring, toward the goal of creating knowledge for the scientific community, and
(c) Helping students to get better at inquiring, toward the goal of creating knowledge for themselves. |
5 |
What would you say are characteristics of "good" questions (or, if you prefer, of "better" as opposed to "worse" questions), when the goal of the inquiry is to create knowledge for the scientific community? |
6 |
What would you say are characteristics of "good" questions (or, if you prefer, of "better" as opposed to "worse" questions), when the goal of the inquiry is to create knowledge for onself? |
7 |
What do you imagine might be some of the main factors that affect how engaged IU students tend to be in their learning about biology? |
8 |
1) What topics concerning biology would you guess that the majority of IU students who are majoring in Biology would be most inclined to genuinely care about?
2) What topics concerning biology would you guess that the majority of IU students who are not majoring in Biology would be most inclined to genuinely care about? |
9 |
Which of the following statements do you agree with?
Students who are more intellectually mature tend to...
(a) be more inquisitive than students who are less intellectually mature.
(b) be more inclined to seek out, recognize, and confront complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity than are studenst who are less intellectually mature.
(c) be more inclined to come up with and consider ideas about possible answers to their questions than are students who are less intellectually mature.
(d) feel more comfortable holding unanswered questions in their minds than are students who are less intellectually mature.
(e) view learning as being mainly a matter of constructing their own knowledge, whereas students who are les intellectually mature tend to view learning as being mainly a matter of taking in (or inputting) knowledge.
(f) be better able than students who are less intellectually mature to handle freedom and responsibility for deciding what is most important to be trying to learn and otherwise accomplish in college.
(g) tend to be more engaged in their learning than are students who are less intellectually mature.
Please add any comments that you have. |
10 |
Which of the following statements do you agree with?
(a) Helping students to become more inquisitive would help them to become more intellectually mature.
(b) Helping students to become more inclined to seek out, recognize, and confront complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity would help them to become more intellectually mature.
(c) Helping students to become more inclined to come up with and consider ideas about possible answers to their questions would help them to become more intellectually mature.
(d) Helping students to feel more comfortable holding unanswered questions in their minds would help them to become more intellectually mature.
(e) Helping students to view learning as being mainly a matter of constructing their own knowledge, rather than to view learning as being mainly a matter of taking in (or inputting) knowledge, would help them to become more intellectually mature.
(f) Helping students to better handle freedom and responsibility for deciding what is most important to be trying to learn and otherwise accomplish in college would help them to become more intellectually mature.
(g) Helping students to become more engaged in their learning would help them to become more intellectually mature.
Please add any comments that you have. |
11 |
In general, do you think that people can be good at thinking without being good at questioning (e.g., good at generating, analyzing, and prioritizing questions)? |
12 |
What factors, if any, do you imagine might discourage students from searching for and exploring in college those issues that are most meaningful to them? Along the same lines, what factors, if any, do you imagine might discourage students from seriously considering the questions of what might be most important and interesting to learn in college and what might be most important and interesting to learn within each course? |
13 |
1. Have you ever encountered an undergraduate who seemed to be genuinely engaged in her learning about something concerning biology? If so, what were indications to you that this student was genuinely engaged in her learning, and what factors do you suppose caused or allowed her to be this way?
2. What qualities do you most like for undergraduates to have? (What qualities do you most highly value?)
|
14 |
1. Do you think that one of the main roles of the IU undergraduate Biology curriculum ought to be to help students to get good at inquiring (e.g., good at generating, analyzing, and prioritizing questions and good at seeking and analyzing data that address one's questions?)
2. Do you think that one role of the IU undergraduate Biology curriculum ought to be to help students to confront and to continually re-examine the question: What might be most important to learn about biology?
|
15 |
1. What roles for our undergraduate Biology curriculum do you consider to be more important than helping students to get good at inquiring?
2. In your undergraduate courses, which inquiry skills have you tried to help students to improve?
3. What are three topics in biology that you consider to be important for undergraduates to get good at inquiring about?
|