Observation II

Chapter 3. Caterpillar to Butterfly: Transforming Kindergartners into Scientific Inquirers

by Glendene Otake

Inviting the outdoor world into the classroom facilitated students’ exploration of the concept of cycle. They learned about life cycles as they watched the development of adult butterflies from eggs and applied this knowledge as a strategy for understanding the process of scientific inquiry by turning it into a cycle. “I assigned daily observation logs for my students to complete. This gave me the opportunity to assess their attention to detail, a crucial characteristic of well-done scientific inquiry. I was able to also assess their ability to attend to detail—a valuable outcome of using scientific inquiry as a classroom learning tool—when instructed to do so.” In this way, teacher author Otake was able to achieve the Assessment Standards More Emphasis condition, assessing what is most highly valued—one of the many More Emphasis conditions achieved within this inquiry.