The development of a vertically integrated model of inquiry-based practical curricula to help students to learn to ‘think like a scientist’

Over the last 30 years, science education has moved toward models of inquiry curricula in an attempt to teach students how to think like scientists (Dunbar and Fugelsang 2005, Ritchhart and Perkins 2005). Across a broad range of contexts, inquiry-based curricula have been proposed to help students develop advanced critical thinking skills, particularly in the evaluation of evidence in complex settings (Kuhn 2005). Although inquiry-based curricula have been shown to produce superior learning outcomes compared with traditional curricula (Brickman et al 2009), an extensive review of inquiry-like learning paradigms revealed that explicit guidance, at a level appropriate to the learner’s skill and knowledge base, is essential for inquiry style classes to produce learning gains that are superior to conventional teaching paradigms (Kirschner et al 2006). This paper reports on the design, implementation, and student evaluation of a series of three undergraduate courses with vertically integrated practical curricula.