In Junior High School "science" Inquiry Learning Theory And Practice

Learning by inquiry is one of the hottest and toughest topics of the curriculum reformation in basic education in our country. Whether a teacher can effectively lead students to learn by inquiry is the key to achieve the educational goals in students' science education. It is also the breakthrough to realize "science is not only a heap of knowledge to be studied, but also a course or method of learning" (Duwey, 1910). This research has studied the learning by inquiry methods in theory and practice. The purpose is to explore practical approaches of learning by inquiry in science education.Part one, the foreword, gives a brief introduction to the purpose, aims and methods of the research. It points out that this research has studied various methods and approaches of learning by inquiry by practicing the thematic inquiry curriculum in science teaching. The main focus of this research is: inquiry theory, teaching strategies, and how teachers obtain the teaching abilities for inquiry.Part two is the study of inquiry theory. It shows the psychological mechanism of inquiry - a self-learning process based on problem-solving. Learning by inquiry is different from scientists' inquiry or discovery learning. It also talks about the relative mode of inquiries. Depending on who produces problems, designs the inquiry project and educes the answer, there are Structured Inquiry, Guided Inquiry and Free Inquiry.Part three is the main body of the work - practice research. The article describes the design and teaching of the thematic inquiry curriculum from the following perspectives: aims, content, practice, and evaluation. The aims should be formed through the inquiry course. The content needs to suffice the condition of effective inquiry. The main teaching strategy is "no guidance". There are qualitative and quantitative metrics to evaluate the course and the result of inquiry. Through one year's experiment, the outcome has demonstrated that the curriculum is effective, and the research solves the study problems.Part four is the discussion and conclusion. It concludes that this study has provided an example of exercise of inquiry. Based on the study result, further studies on the practice of learning by inquiry are also discussed.