Infrastructures for Technology Supported Collective Inquiry Learning in Science

The purpose of this chapter is to examine an elementary-school teacher’s practices of supporting collaborative inquiry. In many present-day classrooms teachers are trying to create collaborative student-centred learning culture with students who are used to follow teachercentred schooling activities. Therefore, instead of portraying the classroom teacher either as a transmitter of knowledge or a facilitator of learning, it is essential to understand in detail the diversity of roles that a teacher may enact and consider appropriate within the diversity of day-to-day classroom-based activities. We argue that whilst the teacher has a crucial role to play in inducting students into collaborative inquiry learning practices; the significance of teacher guidance has often remained unexplained (Hakkarainen, 2009). Even when the pedagogical setting is organized towards collaboration and student-driven inquiry, it does not mean that students will, as a matter of course, collaborate and take collective responsibility for their own learning. Deliberate guiding efforts, on the part of the teacher, oriented toward establishing, cultivating, and sustaining corresponding classroom practices, are needed. Thus, getting teachers more effectively involved in designing their own inquiry-oriented curriculum would better capitalize on their creative potential as well as facilitate deeper engagement in developing their own teaching and pedagogy (Sawyer, 2004).