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Rubric Demo
Rubric Demo

Scientific Inquiry

Scientific Inquiry: To what extent does the content, presentation method, and learner activity facilitate inquiry-based learning as described and intended by the content developer for the page? Does the web page clearly and explicitly encourage students to ask questions, plan and conduct investigations, use appropriate tools and techniques to gather data, think critically and logically about relationships between evidence and explanations, analyze alternative explanations, or facilitate communicating scientific arguments for debate and critique?

 

Participants rate the web page for the following criteria:

Initial/Preliminary Inquiry Intermediate Inquiry Full/Complete Inquiry
  1. Provides a specific step-by-step procedure for the investigation and data collection techniques-prescriptive in nature as students record data as they conduct their inquiry (either hands-on or online).
  1. Challenges learners to answer or contemplate investigative questions that are related to an appropriate national science education standard, e.g. questions related to discrepant events in nature.

  2. Encourages students to explicitly reflect on and use their prior knowledge and skills of the concept/inquiry at hand.

Full/Complete inquiry facilitates three or more of the following items:

  1. Not only encourages students to clarify provided questions, but recommends posing new questions for study relevant to the student's understanding with prompts (extended areas for inquiry) that are related to appropriate NSES.

  2. Encourages learners to determine investigative procedure, methodologies, and data to collect.

  3. Encourages students to use their prior knowledge and skills.

  4. Explicitly embeds instruction that directs learner to construct, consider, state, investigate, or evaluate alternative explanations. Example prompts are provided.

  5. Explicitly embeds instruction to help make connections between inquiry and current scientific knowledge, providing URL links or content for further examination that facilitates conceptual ties and versus stating relationships explicitly.

  6. Explicitly embeds instruction that directs learners to communicate their findings and receive critique. Directions are provided that encourage communicating reasonable and logical arguments to critiques.
This single-page rubric distills more extensive materials developed by the Council of State Science Supervisors (CSSS) for use with instructional materials in print, as published on the NLIST (Networking for Leadership, Inquiry and Systemic Thinking) website. To view these research-based rubrics, please go to http://www.inquiryscience.com/documents/materials.htm.

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Rubrics

  • Authority: Information presented is reliable, valid, and authoritative
  • Design (overall): In addition to being educational, the materials are visually appealing and/or entertaining.
  • Interactivity: Interactive features, such as dynamic feedback based on user manipulation, is provided and add value to the site. Content provides the manipulation of data sets and simulations
  • Communication/Collaboration: Content allows communication/data exchange between content providers and students, as well as between distributed students via the Internet.
  • Scientific Inquiry: To what extent does the content, presentation method, and learner activity facilitate inquiry-based learning -- supported with real world examples
  • How Scientist Work/Nature of Scientific Inquiry: How students learn about what scientists do in the process of inquiry
  • Quality of Writing: Instructional and explanatory text is well written.
  • Resource Integration: The Web page is easily implemented, adds value to pre-existing resources, and is articulated to the Standards.

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