Digital Inquiry-based learning trails

Students' learning experience

• Students embark on learning trails facilitated by mobile technologies to investigate explicit key questions and collect data

• Students propose explanations for observed patterns after close examination of the learning site

• Students critique each other’s explanations on an online collaborative space

• Students reflect on experiences, including how they decide which explanation was most convincing?

Design tips for teachers

• Key questions guide students to progress from descriptive, comparative and to correlative investigations for application of scientific skills

• Proposing explanations allows students to formulate arguments based on claim, evidence, reasoning and rebuttals

• Peer critique allows students to evaluate different ideas and perspectives from peers

• Reflection allows students to understand the value of how Science is conducted and finding evidences in Science

Students can benefit from digital IBL trails because they offer a different form of inquiry that’s more similar to observational studies than to experimental studies. Due to the dynamic character of natural systems, students can observe objects, organisms and events peculiar to the naturalistic setting (e.g. school compound, coastal area) and collaboratively come up with salient descriptions, comparisons or patterns to develop convincing answers to the inquiry question. Hence, digital IBL trails can expand students’ repertoires of inquiry experiences beyond what is often enacted in the laboratory.

- Zachary Tan, Educational Technology Division