How the concept of Epistemic Inquiry can help plan a science curriculum

Epistemic Inquiry is an answer to the, often unfruitful, binary of either knowledge rich or inquiry driven science teaching. This concept was inspired by and is a fusion of the lesson methodology of C.A.S.E and the ideas of Derek Hodson (2014) where he proposes a science curriculum should involve students “Learning Science, Learning about Science, Doing Science”. The big questions of Osborne and Kind (2016) “What exists?, How do things happen? How do we come to Know? What should we do with this knowledge? The workshop shows how this fusion can be a key planning framework for a science curriculum. Participants will also be interactively involved in a short section of an epistemic inquiry lesson, and this will lead into a discussion of how this methodology can “bridge” to their own curriculum. Teachers should leave with concrete ideas of how the can use these big ideas to structure their lessons to provide opportunities for the development of connected understanding, cognitive challenge and opportunities for teacher and student metacognition.