The short version: the Discovery Institute's Explore Evolution textbook is "wildly inappropriate for use in a science classroom."
The long version: you'll have to read it all for the excruciating details.
I would like to emphasize one thing in Timmer's review - something that has been bothering me ever since I first encountered the claim that Explore Evolution uses "the inquiry-based approach to teach modern evolutionary theory."
My initial thought was that the authors of the text were obviously unfamiliar with inquiry-based learning, and that this had to be another instance of anti-evolutionists using a snappy catch-phrase to promote their product.
Inquiry-based learning involves students doing investigations over extended periods of time that allow them to acquire and utilize scientific process skills in context. Through inquiry-based learning, students learn how to conduct scientific investigations in situations that have personal meaning to them and in ways that help them to understand the value of science as inquiry. Inquiry investigations also require students to apply the evidence gained through experimentation to develop and revise their own explanations for scientific phenomena. After students analyze and synthesize the data from their investigations, inquiry-based learning involves students communicating the results of their investigations to their peers. Through asking questions and obtaining answers, students also develop knowledge of science content.
In other words, inquiry-based learning cannot be implemented simply by having students read a textbook.
Thankfully, Timmer expressed my thoughts even better than I could:
IBL avoids the rote memorization endemic in past science classes by having a teacher guide students through a limited version of the scientific process. Students are given a question or problem, provided with the opportunity to obtain information and data relevant to that problem, and then guided through the process of analyzing that information and reaching conclusions based on it. This isn't an "anything goes" approach to science education, though-teachers and lesson plans play an extremely important role in ensuring the students obtain accurate and relevant information and adhere to the rules of logic when drawing conclusions based on it. After all, it's not a good educational method if students come out of it deciding that the force of gravity is random or unmeasurable.
Trained professionals can lead students through IBL exercises. EE gives its authors the chance to determine what information is relevant for students in order to apply IBL to evolution, taking the teachers and professional educators out of the equation. It neatly dodges the issue of the vast evidence that has led to the acceptance of evolution by the scientific community; the book's introduction says that the students will see that in their normal textbooks anyway, so EE's authors can simply present an abbreviated version of mainstream science.
Perhaps more significantly, it omits the entire process of assisting students in reaching a conclusion. It divides evolution into a series of topics that are discussed separately. Each topic includes a case for standard science, a reply to it, and then a further discussion area, where it switches back and forth between the two. The text assiduously avoids suggesting that any conclusion can be reached at all. At best, it could be described as a partial implementation of IBL, if it weren't for the atrocious presentation of scientific information it contains...
So it appears that I was right. Explore Evolution does not implement an authentic inquiry-based approach. This is just another attempt to use a catchy phrase to dress up the same old anti-evolution arguments.
We're all familiar with that strategy:
posted by Jeremy Mohn
