Long-term use of learning cycles following inservice institutes

High school biology: What makes it a challenge for teachers?

“…Considerable evidence also points to the effectiveness of the Learning Cycle, and its component processes of exploration, conceptual invention, and conceptual expansion (Abraham, 1989;Lawson, Abraham, & Renner, 1989;Marek, Haack, & McWhirter, 1994;Marek & Methven, 1991;Renner & Marek, 1990;Scharmann, 1992) as well as more recent elaborations of this model (e.g., Lavoie, 1992). Students appear to gain a more thorough understanding of the concepts and processes at issue with this type of instructional method than they do when the curriculum is presented in a more traditional, expository manner, and they seem to enjoy discovering science more with this inquiry-based approach.…”

“…In support of such efforts, professional science teacher journals contain carefully presented lesson plans for this kind of instructional method, and encourage teachers to adopt them (e.g., Collins, 1994;Lawson, 1991;Rubba, 1992). Early returns indicate that in many cases, both teachers and students appear to enjoy the revamped curriculum much more, and that the students seem to be taking great pleasure in discovering the scientific method (e.g., Marek et al, 1994). However, in other cases there would appear to be significant impediments to the successful adoption of these sorts of teaching methods, including teachers' own lack of familiarity and comfort with the material (e.g., Marek et al, 1990) and their apparent reluctance to relinquish control to their students (Curley & Strage, 1996).…”