Chapter 1: Minimizing Student Resistance to Inquiry

Although there is ample evidence to show that inquiry-oriented instruction can increase student learning, students often resist teachers’ nontraditional approaches. In some cases, students feel that inquiry-oriented teachers are not doing their job of imparting knowledge. A major study recently showed that students asked to use active learning strategies in class are less likely to feel like they are learning, although they actually do learn more (Deslauriers et al., 2019). Resistance to inquiry-oriented instruction often arises from feelings of injustice, uncertainty, and distrust. Teachers should learn to prepare to avoid student resistance preemptively, and to recognize the signs if they arise.

The following vignette illustrates some of the challenges with resistance to inquiry-oriented instruction. The lead author of this book was the project director of a grant-funded initiative to introduce and sustain a form of inquiry-oriented science learning, known as Modeling Instruction™ (AMTA, 2019) in the Chicago metropolitan area. The Chicago ITQ Science Project was a three-year school-university partnership involving 70 high school physics teachers and their designated administrators, as well as three expert high school Modeling instructors, two experienced high school Modeling mentors, and three knowledgeable university-level teacher educators. All participants (except the administrators) met daily for three weeks during the summer of 2005 at Dominican University to learn about and practice Modeling Instruction. During several autumn follow-up meetings, it became evident that participating physics teachers were experiencing a small but discernable degree of resistance to inquiry from some students and parents. Students manifested complaints to the teachers and administrators about the new teaching style. While school administrators were committed to supporting their Modeling physics teachers, even the administrators experienced some resistance from students and parents. Some of the Modeling physics teachers also reported that science-teaching colleagues were skeptical of the inquiry practices used in the Modeling approach. When teachers introduce inquiry methods into a school system where “teaching by telling” is the status quo, they must be prepared to set or re-set the learning climate so that there is an atmosphere that is conducive to inquiry-oriented science learning. This project's teachers experienced several types of student resistance to inquiry, with varying degrees and frequencies. While resistance might at first be alarming to a teacher (especially to a new teacher), there are many strategies that teachers can use to help.

Among the most common types of resistance are resistance from students, parents, administrators, and even colleagues.

Some students resist inquiry if they perceive it as a threat to them achieving high grades. Good students, but especially borderline “A” students who have done well under the more traditional “teaching by telling” mode of instruction, tend to find learning more challenging in a classroom where there is a strong reliance on inquiry. Some students express a strong sense of frustration of not “knowing the right answer” and having to arrive at it on their own using the inquiry process. Likewise, in a classroom that relies upon classroom consensus to define new knowledge, they might initially struggle to value contributions from their peers. Students sometimes indicate that they would like more lecture and reliance on a textbook than is common with constructivist approaches. It's not unusual to hear students say something to the effect, “I'd rather be told what I need to know.” Students who do not understand the value of inquiry might become dissatisfied, upset, or disruptive. Some students will wait for others to begin work, and only then follow other students' leads. Students also routinely struggle to synthesize what they have learned through inquiry unless the teacher explicitly informs them to do so.

An examination of compilations of posts within the Modeling Instruction community's listservs shows that teacher concerns about parental attitudes are well-founded. However, the degree of parental resistance is, in most cases, significantly less than that originating with students. Parental resistance typically arises from students complaining to their parents. The complaints can be varied, but parents become concerned and vocal when they perceive that nontraditional approaches appear to threaten their children's education. Some parents are concerned about adequate subject matter delivery and wonder how inquiry approaches will affect future success in school, college, or university life. Parents might not understand why an inquiry-oriented teacher might refuse to be entirely reliant upon the school board approved textbook (or refuse to explicitly use a textbook at all). Parents might feel that teachers are watering down the curriculum. Parents who want to vent might write “nasty emails” to teachers, or do an end-run around a teacher and go directly to the school administration with a complaint.

Science department chairs, curriculum coordinators, principals, or other administrators might express their concern to teachers about inquiry-oriented teaching. Frequently, these concerns stem from complaints by students or parents or concerns about high-stakes testing such as school- or state-wide testing, college readiness tests, or Advanced Placement exams.

Using inquiry-oriented instruction can be especially difficult for teachers when schools have a culture in which teachers cross-compare, or in which teachers with different pedagogical approaches need to “stay on the same page.” Rather than supporting each other, teachers can sometimes antagonize each other.

By and large, resistance to inquiry-oriented instruction is usually more than about inquiry—it might be a general resistance to change that can be found in any pedagogical shift. Unless all persons with a stake in the process of learning via inquiry are provided with a broad understanding of the reasons for its implementation, the use of inquiry-oriented learning in the science classroom will be threatened. Student, parental, administrator, and peer teacher resistance to the use of inquiry-oriented learning in the science classroom potentially could have deleterious or even debilitating consequences. A sensitive teacher's commitment to inquiry and their confidence in using it can be severely reduced when confronted with resistance. Being confronted with significant and ongoing resistance can result in the new inquiry teacher returning to the older form of direct instruction, or for newer teachers, especially, to leave the profession entirely.

Teachers should be familiar with both proactive and reactive steps to reduce resistance. Teachers should aim to use proactive strategies, as it is easier to change people's attitudes if they have no preconceived notions about inquiry procedures. Potential resistors might even be supportive of a new teaching approach if they understand it and can foresee the benefits of its use. It is much more difficult to change minds after people develop prejudices. With these points in mind, how then does one work to minimize or eliminate resistance to inquiry-oriented learning? The approach consists of properly using climate setting to establish a receptive atmosphere in the classroom, school, and community.

Classroom climate setting addresses a multitude of conditions that deal not only with resistance to inquiry but also with students’ social and emotional learning. Building a good learning environment includes teaching students to respect themselves as well as their peers, education, teachers, school property, and much more. Teachers should also demonstrate the same care for students that they expect from their students toward others. This respect and care extends to create an inclusive environment in which each student feels valued—but also challenged. Classroom climate setting is a careful balance between helping students feel comfortable and pushing them out of their comfort zones into spaces like those engendered by some forms of inquiry-oriented instruction.

Relationships among students and teachers are incredibly important in any classroom. Many teachers dedicate the first few days to explicitly helping students get to know one another and making positive emotional connections to the course content.

The first few days are also an opportunity for the teacher to demonstrate value for learning not so much as an individual end product, as a continual social process. While this message is vital for all students to hear, experience suggests that many students seek personalized assurance about their concerns about being in a physics class. Because so much resistance to inquiry-oriented instruction is the fear of failure, teachers can help neutralize a student's fear by sharing their expectations for what learning should look and feel like at a personal level. Teachers might take this opportunity to introduce the idea of metacognition—the process of continually evaluating what one knows and does not know, and being able to self-regulate one's thoughts, feelings, and actions based on that information (see Chapter 9, “Metacognition and self-regulation”). A teacher who is adept at climate setting can introduce metacognition in such a way as to normalize a student's concerns about learning by helping them to understand that the work they will do together entails making mistakes and overcoming struggles. Students are sometimes relieved to hear that inquiry-oriented learning promotes metacognitive and self-regulatory practices, which research shows can aid significantly in learning in science (NRC, 1999, 2005).

Teachers should also focus early attention on supporting social skills. For example, teachers can explicitly set standards for how to engage in respectful dialogue, how to be an inclusive and supportive peer, how to take constructive feedback, and how to ask for help. By providing students with these social tools, resistant students might be more readily able to convert a complaint into a question, or an expression of concern into positive self-advocacy.

Cooperative learning skills encompass social skills for learning, but also include abilities for working with others to share responsibility and achieve a common goal. Roth (2003) recommends a set of suggested rules for student-on-student interaction. These rules state that each team member will:

• be present and ready to work, contribute to the project, and do the work assigned;

• communicate accurately and unambiguously, fully expressing ideas;

• substantiate claims using evidence;

• pass judgments on the value of ideas and not individuals; and

• ask questions when an idea or fact is presented that they do not believe or understand.

While teachers are very clearly responsible for maintaining classroom climate, this is a responsibility that should be shared among individual students as well. The gravity of this responsibility is particularly serious in physics, a discipline in which women, people of color, and other underrepresented groups have often been sidelined. A variety of physics and physics education institutions have come together to specifically support inclusivity in high school physics classrooms through an initiative called STEP UP 4 Women (http://www.stepup4women.org). While the ultimate goal of the initiative is to increase the number of female physics majors in colleges and universities, the program founders know that the classroom climate of the high school classroom has a strong impact on the futures that young women see for themselves. In addition to providing lesson plans and everyday actions for high school physics teachers to take to encourage physics-related career aspirations, the project has developed a set of practical “Guidelines for conduct during discussions” that they encourage teachers and students to observe to ensure that all students feel welcome to contribute their ideas:

• Share airtime equitably: Know yourself; balance your listening and talking.

• Value differences: Remember that your perspective is not the only one.

• Argue using evidence: Back what you have to say with data.

• Make sure everyone feels safe: Safe is not the same as comfortable.

• Discomfort is ok: Identify your learning edge and push it.

• Own your impact: Your intentions may not be the same as your impact.

While teachers will often encourage students to help co-design classroom norms for interaction, these STEP UP suggestions can be a good starting point.

Sometimes, classroom climate seems to be less about a collection of individuals' or small groups' actions or behaviors, but more about a vague feeling or attitude. As most teachers know, classes can take on a whole personality of their own. Positive classroom climates might be excitable or tranquil. Still, they all have a pervasive sense of trust, an eagerness to do the work of learning, and even an affection for being a part of a learning community. In contrast, negative classroom climates can be identified by a distrust of each other (particularly of the teacher), a resistance to engagement, or a disdain for being in class. While climate setting and classroom discipline sometimes go hand-in-hand, even highly compliant classes might be unwilling to make an effort to engage positively with the class material.

When talking with the whole class, teachers should be forewarned to not “oversell” inquiry-oriented learning at the outset. Students often know when they are being sold a bill of goods. Allow students to experience the fun and benefits of inquiry before delving too deeply into the whys and wherefores. Reticent students are more likely to believe their feelings before they accept educational research data.

However, it is generally a good idea to prime students for the kinds of behaviors that they might see from their teacher so they can understand that there is no hidden agenda. Teachers should make it clear to students that teachers might ask questions even if they know the answer; they might ask “why?” two or three times in a row, and they might ask students to explain and justify their conclusions. Teachers must also point out that questioning an idea does not mean that it is wrong. Even when they have an idea that does not match scientists’ current understanding of the world, their views are an important stepping-stone in their (and their peers’) construction of knowledge. Students need to know that no question is “stupid,” and that—other than impulsive, frivolous questions intended only to distract—the only poor question is the question that is not asked.

Throughout the year, teachers should remain consistent with the principles they set out at the start of the year. Occasionally, students might interpret inquiry-oriented classroom activities in a variety of ways, some of which can be antagonistic to inquiry. Table 1.1 sets out several specific inquiry-oriented practices. Below each practice, you will find how students sometimes misinterpret these practices, as well as how teachers can prevent or resolve these misinterpretations. Teachers can use these distinctions to help their students understand the value of what it is that they do when they employ various inquiry-oriented practices.

The end-all message is that successful climate setting has the elimination of fear as the goal. Students and teachers should be encouraged to be vulnerable, without fear of ridicule or of being wrong. Such a climate has other implications regarding cooperative learning, evaluation, and assessment, which will be discussed in later chapters.

At times, the inquiry-oriented teacher will be disappointed, and at other times dismayed, to learn that parents, administrators, and even teaching peers are resistant to inquiry practices. While proactive climate setting is preferred, sometimes circumstances only allow for teachers to be reactive. Unfortunately, it is not at all unusual to find that parents, administrators, and peer teachers will concern themselves with pedagogical practices only after a “problem” is perceived.

High school students who have been educated through the use of inquiry practices will be better prepared as college and university thinkers than will students who have merely memorized a lot of facts and have learned how to do “plug and chug problem-solving.” Proponents of inquiry-oriented learning should be prepared to point out that post-secondary faculty are aware of this fact. Both the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) (Lead States, 2013) and the College Board's Advanced Placement Physics 1 and 2 were designed to reflect higher-level thinking skills and to cover less content than is traditionally done in traditional courses.

College and university faculty members are also more interested in students who know how to think than in students who know lots of facts. Research by Sadler and Tai (1997), dealing with the performance in introductory physics courses for almost 2,000 students at 19 colleges and universities in the United States, shows the value of inquiry-oriented high school instruction on post-secondary performance. Sadler and Tai noted that a smaller number of topics covered with increased depth of study led to significantly higher grades in college physics courses. As Vesenka et al. (2000) point out, there is a growing recognition among higher education faculty that inquiry-oriented learning, such as Modeling Instruction, improves the level of performance in the areas of critical thinking and problem-solving. As a result of these and similar findings, more and more high schools, colleges, and universities are turning to this mode of instruction. This paradigm shift in secondary and post-secondary instruction has been well documented on physics education research group websites such as PhysPort (http://www.physport.org) and those at the University of Washington (McDermott, 2005), State University of New York-Buffalo (MacIsaac, 2005), University of Maryland (Redish, 2005), and University of Maine (Wittmann and Thomson, 2005).

The focus of any start-of-the year open house for parents is to build positive, personal, and professional relationships with parents. It is these relationships that become the bridge to respectful communication. It is good to speak with parents about inquiry-oriented learning approaches that will be used with their children without overemphasizing the fact that it is different from the norm. Many students have been very successful in didactic classrooms, and any change to the established approach might be perceived as an academic threat. Again, teachers will want to avoid overplaying their hand when introducing inquiry-oriented learning, or else they might generate the very problems they hope to deflect.

Every administrator and peer science teacher should be aware—or made aware of—the many substantive research studies in favor of inquiry, so that they can understand or respond to criticisms of inquiry-oriented approaches. To prevent, offset, deflect, or defeat complaints about inquiry stemming from those both inside and outside the classroom, practitioners of inquiry must be able to make a case for inquiry.

Forms of inquiry-oriented learning are all subject to various types, degrees, and frequencies of resistance from those who do not understand the value of inquiry. Even the teacher of inquiry can lose heart and begin to question whether or not inquiry is “worth it.” Teachers employing these methods, therefore, have a critical need to understand the value of inquiry and the ability to conduct climate setting.

Encountering resistance is relatively common among teachers who employ inquiry-oriented learning, especially among individuals new to teaching physics. Fortunately, the resistance typically encountered by our teachers has been neither frequent nor strident. Resistance to inquiry eventually dissipates as students build a positive relationship with their teachers, and teachers gain both respect and a reputation among teaching colleagues and administrators.