Integrating Inquiry and Explicit Teaching in School Science: The Key Role of Guided Exploration

There is growing advocacy for explicit teaching to replace inquiry approaches in science education. In advocating for integration of both methods, we focus here on the key role of student exploration. In developing this case, we review the literature on both teaching methods, and the warrants for integration. In this conceptual paper, we apply a socio-semiotic lens to detailed accounts of three classroom case studies to identify the nature and value of student exploration allied with explicit teacher guidance or instruction. Through this theoretical grounding the re-analysed case studies illustrate the complex ways in which different types and degrees of student exploration interleave with teacher instructional moves. We propose that this micro-analysis highlights the role of teacher judgments in how to guide learning, depending on the nature of the target knowledge or practice and on the student cohort, including grade level, prior knowledge and competencies, and the epistemic climate of the classroom. From our analyses we propose five reasons why student exploration of phenomena can be a generative feature at any stage in school science learning.