Background: Constructing knowledge through collaborative practical work is a complex process and involves the use of multiple modalities by group members. In practical work sessions, students often manipulate visual objects or textual materials but do not develop their scientific ideas. Purpose: This study illustrates (a) the challenges that…

Successfully carrying out a secondary school physics inquiry requires a considerable amount of procedural and content knowledge. It further requires knowledge of how and why maintaining scientific standards produces the best available answer to the given research question. To this purpose, a series of five inquiry activities was developed and…

This article presents an exploratory study aimed at analyzing the instructional design of learning personalization practices in three secondary education centers that promote connections between students' learning and/or their learning experiences in and out of school. We propose three dimensions for analysis, according to a constructivist and…

This paper elaborates on the notion of object-oriented collaborative learning by building on empirical material from two case studies in higher education. Prior empirical findings show how knowledge objects are evolving entities, shaped by the interactions between participants, and how students learn from engaging in knowledge practice that…

Creativity can and should play a role in students' science experiences. Beghetto ("Roeper Review" 29(4):265-270, 2007) suggested a framework for teachers to assist students in transforming their creative ideas into creative products. This framework involves taking time to listen to students' ideas, helping them recognize the constraints…

This paper presents a case study of a teacher's experience in implementing an inquiry approach to his teaching over a period of two years with two different classes. His focus was on using a range of information technologies to support student inquiry learning. Data was collected over the two year period by observation, interview and student work…

Studies of professional development have examined the influence of school-based approaches on in-service teacher learning and change but have seldom investigated teachers' job-embedded learning processes. This paper explores the dynamic processes of teacher learning in school-based settings. A qualitative comparative case study based on the…

Socioscientific issues are ill-structured problems that involve moral, ethical, and financial aspects, and lack clear-cut solutions. Teaching socioscientific issues necessarily puts a demand on teachers to draw on knowledge stemming from other domains, and to also appreciate, and present to the students the societal aspects of science. For new…

This paper describes the development of "ScienceKit," a mobile, social media application to promote children's scientific inquiry. We deployed "ScienceKit" in "Kitchen Chemistry" ("KC"), an informal science program where children learn about scientific inquiry through cooking. By iteratively integrating…

The two case studies reported in this article contribute to a better understanding of how inquiry tasks and activities are employed as resourceful means for learning in higher professional education. An observation-based approach was used to explore characteristics of and challenges in students' participation in collaborative inquiry activities in…

This paper presents a case study of the co-design process for an online course on Sustainable Development (Degree in Tourism) involving the teacher, two students, and the project researchers. The co-design process was founded on an inquiry-based and technology-enhanced model that takes shape in a set of design principles. The research had two main…

This research is trying to evaluate the feedback of Thai secondary school students to inquiry-based teaching and learning methods, exemplified by the study of chemical kinetics. This work used the multiple-choice questions, scientifically practical diagram and questionnaire to assess students' understanding of chemical kinetics. The findings…

This paper explores three potential affordances (social, technical and pedagogical) of wikis in the context of designing 32 teachers' learning of classroom management cases. Two learning environments were designed and two groups of the teacher-participants posted their own written and audio cases, identified problems, discussed and proposed…

In the light of the European Union's interest in creativity and innovation, this paper, drawing on data from the EU project Creative Little Scientists (2011-2014), explores the teaching and learning of science and creativity in Early Years education. The project's conceptual framework, developed from detailed analysis of relevant literatures,…

The increasing calls for diversity research signal a need to explore strategies through which we attempt to interact with and respond to diversity intentionally in courses and curricula. This case study of a first-year inquiry course in a college of education fills a gap in the literature by documenting and analyzing instances of educators…