;
Lorem Ipsum Dolor Spring 2016
8
electrical engineering; another was a practicing civil engineer. The third and
fourth mentors were graduate students in science, one working in chemistry
and the other in physics. The role of the mentors was to facilitate the inquiry
of the camp participants through questioning and redirecting the students to
helpful resources. Additional adult volunteers and organizational personnel
were onsite primarily to handle logistics and to work with the parents.
Research Methods
This study was exploratory in nature
so qualitative data collection
techniques were used. The Student Inquiry Review (SIR) was used in this
research. This instrument is a new tool that was piloted in this research
study. It is an observational protocol consisting of timed observations and
detailed notes of how students are engaged in the inquiry process. The
concept of focusing an observation directly on student behaviors is drawn
from the work of Richard Elmore in Instructional Rounds (City, Elmore,
Fiarman, & Teitel, 2009). In Instructional Rounds, classroom observations
center on the instructional core which is composed of the instructional task,
student behaviors completing the task, and teacher behaviors supporting the
student during task completion. Each component is considered equally. Most
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