We argue that students should take on roles as "epistemic agents"--those who shape knowledge production and practices of a community. In this study, the research team--a science educator and two scientists--worked with a sixth-grade teacher to provide 90 students with opportunities to take up epistemic agency over a 22-day unit about…

We focused on young, low-income, African American children in first- to third-grade classrooms where they experienced varied forms of interactive, participatory, and dialogic pedagogy in the context of yearlong, integrated science-literacy instruction. Using conversations that started around children's own science journals, which were an important…

During the past decade science educators have taken steps to identify seminal structures and approaches of science teacher professional development. This literature, which is increasingly informing how and in which contexts professional developers design and implement programs, states that scientists' divergent research interests and knowledge…

Guided scientific inquiry investigations are designed to have students reach particular answers through the thinking processes and activities of scientists. This presents a difficult challenge for teachers who must selectively hold back answers from students to maintain an atmosphere that encourages student-directed inquiry. The present study…

Reports on a study aimed at facilitating freshman general chemistry students' understanding of atomic structure based on the work of Thomson, Rutherford, and Bohr. Hypothesizes that classroom discussions based on arguments/counterarguments of the heuristic principles on which these scientists based their atomic models can facilitate students'…

Reform efforts emphasize teaching science to promote contemporary views of the nature of science (NOS) and scientific inquiry. Within the framework of situated cognition, the assertion is that engagement in inquiry activities similar to those of scientists provides a learning context conducive to developing knowledge about the methods and…