Inquiry+Skill

Both the unit for kindergarten and the unit for fifth grade focus heavily on the inquiry skill of assimilation. Assimilation is the third stage in Daniel Callison's (2006) inquiry cycle- questioning, exploration, assimilation, inference, and reflection. During the assimilation stage, students "absorb and fit information to that which is already known, believed, or assumed by the learner" (pg. 7). As students access new information through print, electronic, and human resources, they must either assimilate it into their existing knowledge or reject it. An inquiry unit involving physical science gives students an opportunity to compare information that is read or heard with the results of physical trials of the concept being examined. Providing opportunities for students to consider new information about a topic from a variety of sources allows them to strengthen or alter the beliefs that they hold about the natural world.

While the main focus of these units is the assimilation stage, it is important to note that the process of assimilation typically does not occur separately from the inference stage. The two stages are interconnected and even paired together in Callison's visual representation of the inquiry cycle. Inference "involves the actions or processes for deriving a conclusion from facts and premises" (Callison, 2002). As students gain new knowledge about a subject, they make inferences about the ways that the new understanding applies to situations in their own lives. Through the process of making and testing inferences, students may be driven to revisit their resources for new information to support their inferences.

In the kindergarten unit, the learning activity begins by calling on students' prior knowledge of the ways that things move. They explore different types of movement before the teacher assigns names to them. The terms "push" and "pull" are then introduced and distinguished from one another. Students begin to categorize movements as being the result of either a push //or// a pull. Therefore, their general knowledge of movement becomes classified into categories and they begin to assimilate an understanding of the differences between a push and a pull. In later lessons, this new understanding is called upon to make inferences about the results of an investigation into different types of pushes and pulls. Engaging in the hands-on investigation results in the assimilation of more new knowledge.

The fifth grade unit requires students to assimilate information at a higher level of thinking and make inferences without the support of a whole-class setting. Students are provided with a list of questions about the force that they have chosen to study. They engage in the inquiry stage of exploration as they locate sources that will provide information about their topic. As they find useful information, they assimilate it into their prior knowledge about the topic. When they are ready to build a physical model that demonstrates the force they are studying, they must make inferences about the design and materials to use in order to effectively display the force in action. By testing the physical model and gathering data, they assimilate their new knowledge of what is effective and what is not into their understanding of the force.

Callison, D., & Preddy, L. (2006). //The blue book on information age inquiry, instruction and literacy.// Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

Callison, D. (2002, June). Information Inquiry//.// //School Library Media Activities Monthly//, //18(10)//, 22-3, 35. Retrieved March 24, 2012, from http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy2.ulib.iupui.edu/ehost