Combining General and Domain-Specific Strategic Support for Biological Inquiry

BGuILE is a learning environment in which students explore rich problem contexts in evolutionary biology and behavioral ecology. BGuILE uses domain-specific investigation models to scaffold students for the particular strategies experts use in these domains. These investigation models focus students on the relevant aspects of each domain, and support productive investigation strategies within the domain. BGuILE’s explanation construction tools encourage students to bridge from their problemspecific explanations to broader domain theories and a more general understanding of scientific inquiry and theory-building. BGuILE is situated within classroom activities which encourage students to inquire into complex problems and discuss their research with their teachers and peers. 1 . The Need for Strategic Support in Science Learning Modern goals for science education stress the active nature of students learning about science through their own investigations (NRC, 1996). Interactive learning environments have been argued as one way to support this type of learning, providing students simulated microworlds in which they can manipulate variables and explore phenomena (Shute, Glaser, & Raghavan, 1989; White, 1993). Yet, studies of students’ exploration and hypothesis testing reveal differences in strategies that can affect how well students can learn through inquiry (Schauble, Glaser, Raghavan, & Reiner, 1991). An interactive learning environment for science must do more than provide a world for students to explore, it must provide strategic support. In this paper, we explore the types of strategic support required in rich scientific environments and describe a learning environment designed to provide such support for biological inquiry. Our goal is to support student-directed investigations in science. We are focusing on topics in evolution and behavioral ecology, in which students can ask questions about how and why organisms behave as they do. The goals for this environment concern both biological phenomena in particular, and a better understanding of science in general. Many students develop a view of science as a method for discovering static facts about the world, and see learning science as simply learning those facts (Lederman, 1992). Instead, we wish to foster a view of science as a process of building and revising models to better explain observed phenomena. Thus, a learning environment for science must combine facilities allowing students to conduct experiments or collect observations with specific scaffolding for scientific inquiry and explanation processes. Encouraging students to articulate explanations and be systematic about tying results back to candidate hypotheses is important. Yet, while this general type of scaffolding is promising, we do not believe it will be sufficient strategic support for students’ investigations in rich complex environments. Additional domain-specific support to help students understand what makes reasonable explanations in this domain is also needed.