Around the world, there have been curricula reforms involving the incorporation of the inquiry-based teaching and learning strategy in secondary school science education in general and in practical work in particular. Research in inquiry-based practical work (IBPW) has focused, for example, on aspects of the strategy itself, on teacher…

New technologies are increasingly giving science teachers the ability to access and customize science lessons. However, there is substantial debate in the literature about whether and under what conditions teacher customization benefit student learning. In this study, we examined teacher customization of inquiry-based science lessons from an…

Research experience is increasingly considered an important component of science education at the secondary school and undergraduate levels. This paper presents a case study of students learning in a unique apprenticeship model in which students are engaged in long-term (18 month) open-ended research projects in physics that are done at the…

Orchestrating inquiry-based science learning in the classroom is a complex undertaking. It requires fitting the culture of the classroom with the teacher's teaching and inquiry practices. To understand the interactions between these variables in relation to student learning, we conducted an investigation in two different classroom settings to…

Multiple illustrative case studies were used to investigate guided inquiry methods and the benefits of traditional science notebooks versus electronic science notebooks for students with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities. Results indicated students successfully acquired science content and increased motivation through science inquiry…

Teachers often have difficulty implementing inquiry-based activities, leading to the arousal of negative emotions. In this multicase study of beginning physics teachers in Australia, we were interested in the extent to which their expectations were realized and how their classroom experiences while implementing extended experimental investigations…

Assessing the credibility of evidence in complex, socio-scientific problems is of paramount importance. However, there is little discussion in the science education literature on this topic and on how students can be supported in developing such skills. In this article, we describe an instructional design framework, which we call the Credibility…

In this study I rely on sociocultural views of learning and teaching to describe how fifth- sixth-grade students in a Fostering a Community of Learners (FCL) classroom gradually adopted scientific ideas and language in a socially complex classroom. Students practiced talking science together, using everyday, scientific, and hybrid discourses as…

This article investigates three teachers' conceptions and use of inquiry-based instructional strategies throughout a professional development program. The professional development program consisted of a 2-week summer inquiry institute and research experience in university scientists' laboratories, as well as three academic year workshops. Insights…

This case study characterizes the inscriptional practices demonstrated by seventh graders, particularly their use of data tables and graphs, in an inquiry-based learning environment. Using a naturalistic approach, we collected multiple sources of data during an 8-month instructional unit that emphasized water quality and relevant concepts. The…

What teaching practices foster inquiry and promote students to learn challenging subject matter in urban schools? Inquiry-based instruction and successful inquiry learning and teaching in project-based science (PBS) were described in previous studies (Brown & Campione, [1990]; Crawford, [1999]; Krajcik, Blumenfeld, Marx, Bass, & Fredricks,…

Despite the ubiquity of the term "inquiry" in science education literature, little is known about how teachers conceptualize inquiry, how these conceptions are formed and reinforced, how they relate to work done by scientists, and if these ideas about inquiry are translated into classroom practice. This is a multicase study in which 14 preservice…

We studied the outcome of a professional development opportunity that consisted of 2-week-long resident institutes for teams consisting of a secondary science teacher and two students. The science content of the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded professional development institute was monarch butterfly ecology. The first institute took place…

In this investigation we employed a case study approach with qualitative and quantitative data sources to examine and discover the characteristics of the processes used by a midwestern U.S. school system to adopt and implement a new K-6 science curriculum. Analysis of data yielded several results. Elementary teachers received what they requested,…