As I get further and further into my study of scientific inquiry, its applications, benefits, and its true meaning, I realize that my thoughts and the people in education thoughts had to have come from somewhere. So this is where I am now in my thesis process: literature review. Google Scholar and UConn Libraries are my best friends. What is so great about the Internet sources is the fact that you can click on who cited this article and then click on who cited that article and so on. And in about a few short hours of reading abstracts I have compiled a list of about twenty sources. I have collected articles that look at cognitive development and analytical thinking, processing skills involved for inquiry, student opinions regarding inquiry based labs, guided inquiry and many others.Will I use them all? Probably not and I will probably need to find more.
My goal in the next few hours (days) is to extract information from these sources that can highlight and help prove my hypothesis. I have been looking at scientific argumentation and using found evidence to support my claims as recommendations for science literacy through inquiry-based classroom instruction. Might as well take my own advice and use evidence (found from educational researchers) to support my claims (Inquiry based instruction is beneficial).
I have recently purchased more ink to print out these articles since I cannot stand to read pages among pages on my computer screen and will slowly dig away at my mound of articles. Throughout this year I have become pretty good at annotating literature whether its putting stars, highlighting,or underlining and I will be looking for strong data that will help to explain my results from my survey(more to come about that in the future). I actually taught a lesson to my seniors about how to read a scientific journal and extract pertinent information from heavy duty writing. I am searching for that lesson plan now....
So I have my favorite reality TV shows on DVR for later, got out my comfy clothes, have an array of highlighters handy and I am ready to work. The Hunger Games series and other recreational reading will have to wait.
I can't help but admire your persistence and optimism. I keep fooling myself into thinking that downloading an article is almost as good as reading them. Your plan is much better. The only "tweak" I'd offer is that you are not proving your hypothesis. Instead, you are testing your hypothesis (or hunch) to see what parts of it are accurate and which need to be modified -- with more thinking and even more research. I can already tell you the smartest, politest, and cleverest team will win the Amazing Race.
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