Science is inquiry by definition.
Most science classrooms aren't.
Science is a subject that should, in theory, be a natural fit for facilitation. Scientific thinking is inquiry-based by definition — it involves forming hypotheses, collecting evidence, evaluating alternative explanations, and revising conclusions in light of data. Science classrooms, however, are often among the least inquiry-based in secondary schools.
The reason is structural: the practical investigation has become a procedure-following activity rather than a genuine inquiry, and the theory lesson has become a content delivery session rather than an evidence-examination discussion. The result is a common student experience of science as a body of facts to be remembered, occasionally verified through structured experiments that always produce the expected result. This is the opposite of scientific thinking.
Before the experiment. During it.
Definitely after it.
This step is almost universally skipped in school science. It is also one of the most powerful learning mechanisms available: a student who has committed to a prediction and been proved wrong by their own experimental data has experienced genuine cognitive conflict. Their prior model has been directly falsified. This produces accommodation — genuine understanding — at a depth that simply watching the expected result cannot.
During the data collection phase, introduce interpretation discussions: 'What pattern are you seeing? Is this what you predicted? If not, what might explain the difference?' This moves the experiment from procedure-following to genuine inquiry — students are interpreting their own data in real time, not waiting for the teacher to explain what the results mean.
The post-experiment discussion is usually replaced by students filling in a results table and copying a conclusion from the board. This wastes the most scientifically valuable moment: 'What does this data support? What doesn't it tell us? What would we need to test to be more confident?' These questions develop scientific epistemology — the understanding of what evidence can and cannot establish.
Evidence first. Theory second.
The same hook principle from C7/A1.
Instead of presenting the theory and then showing supporting evidence, present the evidence and let students try to explain it before introducing the theory.
Student discussion (8 min): Groups discuss and propose explanations. Common emerging ideas: something about the material, thickness, temperature.
Brief instruction (10 min): Introduce Ohm's Law — not as a fact to memorise, but as the explanation that accounts for all three graphs. “The pattern you observed is summarised by V = IR. Let's check it against each graph.”
Consolidation discussion (15 min): Socratic questioning: “Does this law hold for all materials? What would falsify it? Can you design a test that would tell us whether temperature is a factor?” — moves from Ohm's Law as fact to Ohm's Law as a testable claim.
The natural home — and the failure mode
specific to English and humanities.
A3 covers English and humanities — the subjects where facilitation is most natural and where undirected discussion most convincingly masquerades as it. Four structures that require reasoning, and three failure modes that look like facilitation but aren't.