Survey of Instructional Strategies

Strategy Three – Inductive Model

For the third strategy, I will use the Inductive model to address learning of science concepts in kindergarten. The inductive model utilizes a study print (Dell’ Olio & Donk, 2007, p. 154). A study print would be considered an advanced organizer, according to Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, & Stone, 2012, p. 51). The study print provides the content that students will describe, list, and organize. It is the organization of this content with which students will come to an understanding of the concepts upon which the lesson is based (Dell’ Olio & Donk, pp. 154-155).

The inductive model is a form of inquiry. Marshall and Horton found that when students are presented with an inquiry, if the inquiry content is guided in the order of engage, explore, explain, and extend then student cognitive levels increase (2011, p. 94). However, there must be enough time for students to explore so they can develop a plan of action, observe, plan implementation, and collect data from their observations. If teachers do not give enough class time for the explore stage of inquiry and too much time to the explain stage, Marshall and Horton found student cognitive levels decreased (p. 99).

Calhoun, Poirier, Simon, and Mueller found the inquiry based inductive model requires that teachers understand the theory rationale, lesson structure, and student learning (2001). Calhoun et al. discovered the pace of their lessons depended upon student learning; thus this group of teachers reviewed student work daily in order to check for understanding and to determine if students were ready for reorganization of their vocabulary words or sentences (2001). Calhoun et al., found the Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM) built upon student prior knowledge and addressed long term memory retention through sorting and organization activities.

As stated above, the inductive model uses prior knowledge. Students build their knowledge through categorization of lists created from the introductory picture. When selecting the picture upon which content will be built, teachers should consider the age of learners and how their identities and interests will influence their learning (Renninger, 2009, p. 111). Renninger also found that students need to see a personal value of the content to be learned (p. 114). As teachers we need to demonstrate to students that their ideas and progress in learning the content are valued (Renninger, p. 114). The inductive method allows teachers to demonstrate to students that their ideas are valued since it is the students who are organizing content around their ideas on how different items go together.

Identification of Research Findings:

• Inductive reasoning builds on students’ current knowledge, making inferences about new knowledge (Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, & Stone, 2012, p. 136).
• There is little research on the inductive model that shows an increase in student achievement; however in this model, students analyze data they have collected during observations based on questions generated by the inductive strategy. The inductive model requires students use higher level thinking skills during the exploration phase of the lesson. (Dell’ Olio & Donk, 2007, p. 168; Marshall & Horton, 2011, p. 94).
• Within the inductive model of instruction, the order of instruction is found to be significant. The exploration stage must come before the explanation stage. Students need time to “develop, plan, observe, and collect data” (Marshall & Horton, p. 99).
• Calhoun, Poirier, Simon, & Mueller found the inductive model builds upon students’ prior knowledge and increased student long term memory retention through the use of classification and organization activities (2001).
• More time in the exploration phase (organization and reorganization of listed items) of the inductive model increases the cognitive level of students (Marshall & Horton, 2011, p. 98).

Implementation notes:

Using the inductive method, we will make lists of what we know about each item in the picture.

I will need to create a picture of each item addressed in our science units on trees and animals. These pictures will be placed on a flipchart that we will use and build upon throughout each unit. The flipchart will need to have pictures of the following items for the trees unit: different types of evergreen trees and deciduous trees, different types of leaves, and shapes. The flipchart for the animals unit will need to have the following pictures: fish, worm, isopod, aquarium, elodea, guppy, worm, pill bug, sow bug, and terrarium. Addressing student interest and how this categorization applies to the students, I plan to add a picture of a person to each of the flipcharts. The standard being addressed covers the concepts of what basics are needed to support life and how habitats affect plants and animals. Adding a picture of a human onto the flipcharts will cause students to compare and contrast the needs of plants and animals to humans.

As students create lists about the pictures, their comments will be recorded on the flipchart in a manner that allows the words to be manipulated individually so that students could categorize words/items based upon their decided criteria.

Implementation Three – Inductive Model

Resources-Survey of Instructional Strategies