ENGAGEMENT IN INQUIRY BASED ACTIVITIES THROUGH WEB-LABS

For years researchers and teachers support the idea that involving students in laboratory activities in science courses contributes not only to the construction of conceptual knowledge but also to procedural knowledge and the development of a scientific way of thinking. Simulations can be considered as a “vehicle” that helps to manage both the conceptual approach and the experimental procedure, at least to some extend.

Virtual labs (VL) provide new features as they can be used in teaching in a similar way to the real labs as students can perform the same experimental arrangements and can practice in experimental procedures. Most virtual labs are standalone applications, running on the local computer of the user so the use of such applications is limited at school. So, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, the assignment of inquiry-based lab activities at home. The web-based VL overcome this drawback by allowing students’ engagement outside the school and thus, giving the opportunity to extend students’ lab-activities at home as homework.

We tested the above idea in more than 100 secondary school students during a Physics-oriented summer- school course. The “vehicles” were web virtual labs and simulations recently developed and freely accessible. We structured worksheets (WS) based in an everyday situation (problem). The engagement activities follow the four levels of inquiry continuum: from confirmation (cookbook), to structured, to guided and ending with open inquiry. At the confirmation lab the students are familiarized with the web labs following instructions in a WS where the problem is posed, the instructions to follow in their research and the required materials are given, so the students can confirm an already (intuitively) known result. Then in the structured-inquiry lab the students reach own conclusion based on evidence from data collected in the experimental setting under guidance given in the WS. In guided-inquiry lab only the problem is posed and students design the procedure and select the appropriate material, aiming at draw conclusions. Finally at the open-inquiry students poses the right questions, develop their own procedures and draw conclusions based on evidence.

In this work, the scenario which engaged students in web VL, along with first results from completed WS as well as from questionnaires, will be presented.