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Favorite Demonstration: Demonstrating Inquiry-Based Teaching Competencies in the Life Sciences: Part 1

Journal of College Science Teaching – September/October 2007

Research shows that many students hold misconceptions related to plant functions (Hershey 2004). Some of these students will become teachers with little content understanding to identify their students’ misconceptions about plants (Amir and Tamir 1994). The literature on teaching about plants doesn’t help; it contains frequent errors, misconceptions, and overgeneralizations, providing few reliable resources to inform teaching practices (Hershey 2004). It is within this context that the National Research Council (NRC) encourages science teachers, including those in the life sciences, to adopt inquiry-based teaching practices (1996; 2000; 2001). However, this effort is hampered by teachers’ limited background knowledge about plants and a lack of appropriate inquiry-based instructional resources that focus on concepts related to plant functions. This article describes a series of activities that address each of these issues.
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