USING THE METHOD OF MULTIPLE WORKING HYPOTHESES TO FRAME AN INQUIRY-BASED SCIENCE LABORATORY

Kari L. Lavalli & Sally K. Sommers Smith

Division of Natural Sciences

THE GOAL: STUDENT-DIRECTED INQUIRY

Required year-long general education course

Theme: evolutionary theory, human evolution as a case study

Challenge students to design and perform experiments, interpret data, and write about their findings

Avoid “cookbook” labs Make laboratory the focus of the course

THE CORE TEXT FOR THIS COURSE

The Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses (T.C.Chamberlain, 1897, reprinted 1931)

Idea: Scientists become attached to their explanations; these attachments influence the data collected and analyzed

Multiple hypotheses prevent focus on a single explanation

Elimination experiments narrow the possibilities, until only a few explanations are likely

APPLICATION TO STUDENT LEARNING

Students are presented with opportunities to observe organisms closely

These opportunities included: Observation of gorillas at Franklin Park Zoo;

comparison with human behavior Territorial behavior of Betta splendans (fighting

fish) Mating behavior of Drosophila melanogaster

(fruit flies)

APPLICATION TO STUDENT LEARNING

Initially, students observe carefully, using behavioral sampling techniques

From these data, students suggest multiple hypotheses to explain their observations

Students test their hypotheses by designing and performing experiments

Students share their hypotheses and raw data with the class in short presentations

Lab groups write a formal laboratory report on their findings and conclusions

LABORATORY GROUPS

Sasha Shahidinijad and Jonathan Ho

STUDENT EXPERIMENTS

Reina Yasouka Charlotte Altirs Erica Cohn

STUDENTS LEARN TO DESCRIBE EXPERIMENTS

STUDENTS LEARN TO GRAPH DATA

OUTCOMES Students become accustomed to formalizing their observations

and turning them into answerable questions Students become accustomed to the idea that several different

explanations may be considered to explain a set of observations Students become accustomed to designing experiments with

quantifiable endpoints, and graphing their data immediately Students become proficient at presenting their hypotheses and

data to other lab groups Challenges: students have difficulty communicating their

observations, findings, and conclusions in formal laboratory reports

Opportunities to revise lab reports improve scores, but lessons learned in revision may not be repeatable

We are currently testing ways of improving student writing in the sciences