Inquiry Skills an Example by

Inquiry Skills by Expert Lilliana | 21 Dec 2016 The nature of scientific enquiry skills and their role in the childrens learning in science Jean Piaget is the noted researcher that has advocated cognitive constructivism. Constructivism is a popular method of instruction that educators use in helping children increase knowledge and learning. The learning process is very effective for children because it is through Piagets studies in child psychology that he discovered the constructivist concept in learning. Need essay sample on "Inquiry Skills" topic? We will write a custom essay sample specifically for you Proceed Constructivism is simply defined as a method of instruction where students change their beliefs, upgrade their knowledge or incorporate new ideas and principles through their own cognitive processes (Zahorik, 1997; Brooks Doolittle, 1997). In the constructivism, teachers are not the source of knowledge. Teachers are mere facilitators and guides. Their role is to facilitate students develop and broaden their insights and perceptions by getting students go through experiences and discoveries incorporated in the exercises. Exercises and experiences help the child gain sense of the many processes around him. From these sense, the child is able to gain beliefs and ideas. Once the child begins to have beliefs and ideas, he then begins to interact with his environment. As the child continue his interactions, his experiences add up and his beliefs may change or deepen or widen thus learning becomes a continuous cycle of discovery or inquiry. The constructivist concept of learning is very apt to teaching children the foundations to scientific inquiry. The scientific method is very much supported by the constructivists point of view. With scientific inquiry, the child gains knowledge and understanding of the world where he is part of. For example, in understanding the concept of air, a child needs first to understand the concept of the senses that he has such as smell and touch. Knowing his sense of touch, he will be able to feel the wind. Knowledge of his sense of smell, he can use this in understanding whats happening when the room is sprayed with perfume. To further his knowledge on the subject matter, he also needs to learn how to further his inquiry skills so that he can explore the experience that the teacher has prepared. Using the constructivist processes, science is learned by the child using inquiry skills developed. The seven skills are raising questions, developing a hypothesis, predicting, gathering evidence, making observations, interpreting and making conclusions, communicating and reflecting. (Harlen, W. 2000) Raising questions is an important part of the learning process. Raising questions is not only part of the scientific process but it is what sets man apart from other animals. A rat by rote learning will learn how to push the lever that brings him his food. If one day, the master of the rat forgets to replenish the food in the bin, the rat will not ask why food did not come out when he pushed the lever. A child emptying a box of cornflakes will one day peek into the box of cornflakes when it becomes empty. Sometimes, he will cry and at times he will throw away the box and then cry. The mere asking of the question why is important to all field of science. Its important therefore for the teacher to prepare different variables and problem situations so that the child can increase his experience and develop his inquiry skills. The National Curriculum supports inquisitive thinking by suggesting to teachers to continue to ask the children questions such as How? Why? And What will happen if? And observe how the children might decide to find answers. First hand experience is a simple information source to answer questions. The National Curriculum also believes that learning like the constructivists advocate is done through building blocks called stages. During key stage 1 pupils observe, explore and ask questions about living things, materials and phenomena. They begin to work together to collect evidence to help them answer questions and to link this to simple scientific ideas. They evaluate evidence and consider whether tests or comparisons are fair. They use reference materials to find out more about scientific ideas. They share their ideas and communicate them using scientific language, drawings, charts and tables. (NC, 1999) The next six scientific skills will then transpire until the process of inquiry becomes complex, simultaneous and evolving. All these skills abide by the guidelines set by the National Curriculum that state that teaching should ensure that scientific enquiry is taught through contexts the following sections; life processes and living things, materials and their properties, and physical processes. (NC, 1999). Since the constructivist concept needs the teacher as facilitator and the environment where experience is acquired, science teaching through the constructivist curriculum supports the learning of ideas through gathering evidence with investigative skills. Planning, obtaining and presenting evidence, considering evidence and evaluating evidence are actually part of the seven skills of scientific inquiry.And these processes can be very well being founded when looking into the environments of living things, material processes and physical properties. Childrens learning of science doesnt start only in school. Children learn basic skills and knowledge in science even at home. A simple going to the zoo brings much impact to the childs learning of living things and its persities. When children reads his first picture books and he sees animals drawn there, he will be able to develop inquisitive skills of asking why a giraffe has long necks while lions do not. The child based on the amount of knowledge he has will help him predict and hypothesize why a giraffe has long necks while his pet cat has short ones. If the child finally gets to see how giraffes eat, then he may conclude that the giraffe needs to eat leaves from tall trees thats why he needs a longer neck. From an inquiry, and observation skills, realizations will be gathered. If the childs realization, well assisted by the instructor fully equipped with constructivist concepts, furthers, the child may realize that giraffes eat. They may further their observations, questions and insights towards the importance of trees to giraffes. Bottomline, there is a process to take in understanding the world. And that is the scientific process. They learn skills necessary to this area of learning by using a range of tools, for example, computers, magnifiers, gardening tools, scissors, hole punches and screwdrivers. They learn effectively by doing things, for example by using pulleys to raise heavy objects or observing the effect of increasing the incline of a slope on how fast a vehicle travels. (QCA, 2000: 83) Without these scientific skills the child will be left behind in the evolution of the species. Science is referred to as Knowledge and understanding of the world. According to the Foundation Stage Profile, children should show curiosity and interest by exploring their surroundings. Playing with sand, water or dough helps him feel materials around his world. When a child handles or takes his toy apart, he is able to practice how to nurture his curiosity. The child while exploring the objects of his home like the telephone that rings is introduced to technology and its values. As the child goes through his daily routine, he realizes the fact of time. When he goes to the supermarket, the day care or a relatives place, the child will learn basic concepts of place which is foundation for the concept of geography. While the child goes through these materials, people and places, the child learns skills that become his tools that will help him develop his scientific inquiry. When the child collects fallen leaves and groups together the leaves by size, he learns the skill of differentiation. When the child sees himself in the mirror, he is able to practice the skill of recognition. The seven scientific inquiry skills are important to scientific literacy that the child needs to be able to understand life. He needs to understand the many processes of life because for one, he is very much a part of it and for another; he is steward of the life on this planet. Educational institutions work on this premise and continually strive to better and master it especially at younger levels. It is essential that instruction focus on student understanding and demonstration of important relationships, processes, mechanisms, and applications of concepts. Students, in attaining scientific literacy, will be able to demonstrate these explanations, in their own words, exhibiting creative problem solving, reasoning, and informed decision making. (NYS Ed. Dept. 2000) Constructivism and the scientific method go hand in hand in teaching children science. Both concepts are essential and effective methods in helping the child understanding the world around him. Besides the cognitive impact of both processes, there is an affective dimension that the child gains through the constructivist paradigm. Once the child learns what science is through the scientific method instead of simply memorizing all those concept and ideas, the technology of learning science will stay with him. The beauty of constructivism is in its foundation as builder of understanding knowledge through skills of inquiry. If the children are able to acquire these abilities while they are children, they will proceed in being adults with inquisitive minds observing the world and gathering insights from it instead of being part of the process where living things get destroyed. REFERENCES: NYS Ed. Dept. 2000. Physical Setting/Earth Science Core Curriculum http://www.nysed.gov Zahorik, J. 1997. Encouraging and Challenging Students Understandings. Educational Leadership: How Children Learn. Vol. 54, No. 6, March 1997 (ASCD Online) http://www.ascd.org/otb/frame1.html QCA, 2000. Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage. QCA

The Best SAT Vocabulary Lists on the Web

The Best SAT Vocabulary Lists on the Web SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Need to study vocabulary for the SAT but aren’t sure where to start? We have links to the best free lists of SAT vocab from around the web. We also have found other vocab study resources – from videos to apps to browser plug-ins – to help you study in the way that works best for you. Read on and conquer SAT vocabulary! First Things First: Don’t Overdo Vocab Before we jump into the resources, we have an important word of advice – don't overdo vocab studying for the SAT. SAT Vocabulary is based on understanding words in context, in subjects ranging from literature to social science to science. In other words, you won’t be expected to know the definition of a random word with no outside information. Instead, you have to figure out what a word means based on the information around it. So the best use of your study time is to learn high-value, medium-difficulty words, not to cram your head with lots of obscure vocabulary. Be wary of any prep programs that promise to teach you â€Å"SAT Vocabulary,† especially ones with super long word lists (500 or 1000 words). This is a waste of your time! These programs are still based on the old SAT, which tested more obscure vocabulary. That said, if you struggle with vocabulary in general, it can be good to do some separate vocabulary study to help you tackle the reading passages, some of which will be more difficult than on the old SAT. For example, take a look at this question from an SAT practice exam: Test question from SAT Practice Test 1. If you don’t have a clue what the word â€Å"ambivalent† means, it might be hard for you to tackle the sentence and figure out what ambivalent means in this context. (For the record, Merriam-Webster defines ambivalent as â€Å"having a mixture of opposing feelings.†) So how can you figure out if you need to do some dedicated vocabulary study, or if your existing vocabulary base is sufficient? Take a practice SAT, focusing on the Reading and Writing sections. When grading your Reading answers, if you missed half or more of the vocab questions (the ones that begin â€Å"as used in line __, the word ____ most nearly means†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ) then you should make studying vocabulary a priority. Furthermore, when correcting the other Reading questions, try to figure out why you got them wrong. (Learn more about getting the most out of practice tests.) If you notice you’re missing questions because you misunderstood a word or phrase, either in the passage or the question, it could also be useful to get some SAT vocabulary under your belt. Finally, keep an eye out for the â€Å"precision† questions on the Writing section. These questions have you compare different word choices, for example â€Å"therefore,† â€Å"thus,† â€Å"moreover,† and however,† and pick the one that works best in the passage. Again, you need to be able to understand how a word’s meaning works within a sentence to get these right. If you take the practice test and only miss a few or none of the Reading vocab questions, and none of the Writing precision questions, and your wrong answers are due to different issues (timing, misunderstanding the passage’s larger meaning, etc) then do not spend time studying vocab! Focus on your other weak areas. (Check out our ultimate study guide for SAT Reading for ideas.) But if you do struggle on any of those questions, check out the vocabulary lists below to help you learn high-value words for the SAT. SAT Vocabulary Word Lists If you’ve decided that you need to work on SAT vocab, we recommend using these vocab lists. They focus on common, easy-to-moderate difficulty SAT words that are most likely to be tested. They also don’t overemphasize vocabulary – none of these lists is longer than 200 words. Remember that spending hours memorizing vocabulary is not an efficient use of study time for the SAT. Start by learning one word list, then take another practice test. If you're still struggling with the vocabulary questions, move on to the next list. PrepScholar's 200 SAT Words PrepScholar's 150 Top ACT Words Scholastic's SAT/ACT Top 100 Words Kaplan's 100 Most Common SAT Words* *Save this list for last, because it contains more difficult words that are less likely to be tested on the current iteration of the SAT. However, these are still good words to know because they could be used in the more difficult reading passages. You can make your own flash cards to study these words, or check out the resources below for virtual flash cards and other learning resources. Happy studying! Flashcards, Games, and Other Resources Beyond just giving you word lists, we also wanted to give you some more tools to learn vocabulary. These are a few resources that are also free and can help you learn SAT vocab. I chose a range of websites to help different kinds of learners. All of these are great resources, and you should use them if you find them helpful. In general, when you are looking for SAT vocab resources, avoid services promising to teach you more than 500 words (too much time) or any services you have to pay for (not worth it given the amount of free resources). If you have any resources that are helpful for you, feel free to share them in the comments! Quizlet This is an online flashcard website. If you make an account, you can use their website and also their mobile apps for iPhone and Android – meaning you can study your SAT vocab on the go! If you're anything like me and hate hand-writing flash cards, this app will be your best friend. Image via Quizlet. This app is handy because as you review words, you can star cards that you are struggling with, allowing you just to focus on your weak spots. You can either make your own card sets focusing on problem words or search pre-made lists. For example, here’s the Kaplan top 100 list from above! I personally used this app all the time in college for my language classes and found it very helpful. I highly recommend using it to study your SAT vocabulary. ProfessorWord This is an app for your web browser that highlights SAT/ACT vocab words from articles and web pages and defines them for you. This is really cool because if you like to read articles from publications like The New York Times, The Atlantic, or Wired, it’s likely you’re encountering SAT vocab words in your daily reading anyway. This app just goes through and points them out so you don’t miss them! This is a great way to learn words in the context of your day-to-day web browsing. Especially given the SAT's focus on understanding vocabulary in context, I highly recommend using ProfessorWord to find and study vocabulary. Professor Word can turn even your leisure reading into a study exercise. Image via Wired. For the best practice, run ProfessorWord and check out the highlighted words on the web page. Before you click on the word to see the definition, quickly jot down (either on a piece of paper or in a NotePad document) what you think the word means, based on how it's used in the article. Then, check out the official definition. Compare your guess with the official definition and see how close you got. If you do this exercise a few times a week, you will improve your ability to figure out a word's meaning based on its context, plus, you will generate a list of SAT words to study. Win win! Vocab Ahead If you like words explained out loud, check out the videos at Vocab Ahead. These videos are really helpful for students who learn best by hearing rather than reading, or by having concepts explained to them. Head to the â€Å"Study Room† tab and select â€Å"SAT 300 Common† from the drop down menu. The videos for each word last about 30 seconds, and incorporate a definition and at least one example. This is also a great resource if you have a particular word you are struggling to understand based on its dictionary definition alone. Vocab Sushi If you like online quizzes, Vocab Sushi is a website that lets you test your vocab knowledge with quizzes and teaches vocab words by using them in sentences from actual news stories. This is a great way to learn new words through real-world examples, rather than just dictionary definitions. Give this website a shot if you struggle with memorizing basic word definitions and/or if you want more practice learning vocabulary based on its context. What’s Next? Struggling with SAT Reading practice sections? Learn how to stop running out of time on SAT reading. Also, check out our ultimate SAT Reading study guide. It will teach you the content, skills, and tips you need to improve your SAT Reading score. Learn more about vocabulary on the SAT, including how it changed from the old SAT. Not sure what score to aim for on the SAT? Learn how to come up with a target score for the SAT based on the colleges you want to attend. Want to improve your SAT score by 160points?We've written a guide about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:

How does emotional design can stimulates people's attitudes on a web Research Paper

How does emotional design can stimulates people's attitudes on a web site - Research Paper Example To understand the details of the effects of the website best, a research should be carried out on how interactive design, color effect, typography effect, images and layout affect the user emotionally. Methodology The research used the most appropriate tools that would give objective feedback whose findings would be used for future researches and remedies. The chosen tools were questionnaire method and a virtual survey. They are both positivist (quantitative) and interpretivist (qualitative) paradigms. This project was qualitative A qualitative research is a type of research that yields descriptive material based on observation, spoken or written word. It is basically based on the user feedback. The survey was exploratory, descriptive and qualitative in nature. It was exploratory because it sought to explore the perceptions and views of different website users of different ages. The research was a five-phase longitudinal study of primary data from previous researches and built upon t he consequential findings. It consisted of; 1. Design of a suitable checklist to before the starting of the project 2. The self-rating by each of the websites chosen against the checklist. 3. User rating of the websites chosen against the same checklist 4. ... However, there are more phenomenology elements. Similarly on the deductive-inductive front, there is a mix of the two. The research begins from a deductive stance. Based on the chosen websites case study, the research will demonstrated the quantifiable improvements three months after the project. The project assumed that all concerned found the evaluation well worthwhile hence gave trustworthy opinion that ere not biased at all. This lead to a recommendation of the wider use of this project to help the websites and the website designers make choices and changes to improve their designs and the emotional design. The objectives were completed through collating research using both primary and secondary methods. Primary data will be gathered using in-depth analysis of previous findings. The interviews were conducted through virtual interviewing of pop ups that linked the randomly chosen users to the interview questions page. This method was chosen because the structured interviews were f ormal, and can be used to explore in-depth a general area. There was a pre-determined list of question to work with. The research findings formed a discursive and evaluative nature using qualitative research to explore and support arguments, rather than presenting quantitative data as the main focus of the study. The method chosen tried to be as subjective as possible posing questions in a structured manner that avoided researcher bias. It was the customer’s discretion to give information based on merit against the checklist. The assumption as that their opinion as a representation of the majority in the target group that took the interview and the survey. Structured