As adolescents spend more and more time engaging in various on line activities, teachers are questioning the role that language arts curricula might play in helping them become savvy technology users. In this study, an eighth-grade teacher responded to her students' unauthorized participation on MySpace[TM] by initiating an inquiry into social…

This study brings the concept of inquiry as stance to bear on current understandings of how inquiry occurs within online networks for teacher induction. The author presents a case study of an online network that allowed 36 new teachers to participate in informal, spontaneous conversations. Genre research is used to examine the on-network,…

This paper describes a new social networking site, Cloudworks, which has been developed to enable discussion and sharing of learning and teaching ideas/designs and to promote reflective academic practice. The site aims to foster new forms of social and participatory practices (peer critiquing, sharing, user-generated content, aggregation, and…

Online discussion questions, which reflect differing instructional strategies, can take many forms and it is important for designers and instructors to understand how the various strategies can impact students' critical thinking levels. For the purpose of the study three instructional strategies used in the development and implementation of online…

Teacher professional development is a complex enterprise (Sprinthall, Reiman, and Thies-Sprinthall, 1996). While many online professional development programs have been introduced over the past several years that provide continuous, job-embedded support, empirical evidence relating what works and what does not has been limited (Whitehouse, Breit,…

The skills of knowledge-creating inquiry are explored as a challenge for higher education. The knowledge-creation approach to learning provides a theoretical tool for addressing them: In addition to the individual and social aspects in regulation of inquiry, the knowledge-creation approach focuses on aspects related to advancing shared objects of…

Because of the limitless knowledge that is literally at your fingertips, the Internet can be an excellent tool for use with gifted students to differentiate curriculum within a general education setting and also in gifted education classes. However, like any tool, its effectiveness depends on how it is used. This article describes six pedagogical…

This study explored the use of Garrison, Anderson, and Archer's (2000) version of Dewey's (1933) practical inquiry model for assessing the influence of social presence and teaching presence on the quality of critical inquiry experienced by online learners. Students (N = 33) enrolled in an online version of a graduate-level, educational statistics…

Enrichment clusters, a component of the Schoolwide Enrichment Model, are multigrade investigative groups based on constructivist learning methodology. Enrichment clusters are organized around major disciplines, interdisciplinary themes, or cross-disciplinary topics. Within clusters, students are grouped across grade levels by interests and focused…

This study investigated the process by which shared understanding develops in a chat learning space. It used a practical inquiry model to assess the development of cognitive presence. The study also explored how the pattern of conversation in synchronous discussion supports cognitive presence and how cognitive presence changes over time. Results…

With universities, teacher education institutions, and high schools gearing up heavily in online course delivery in every discipline, science educators specifically are asking themselves "How do we provide this access to our students and still maintain our pedagogical integrity in science instruction?" This question seems to be at the heart of a…

The topic of inquiry is explored in an online freshman level introductory biology course for non-majors. The research took place in a distance learning program at a small community college in the Southeast. Students in the course were required to complete an extended guided inquiry in their homes and to communicate about their work by way of the…

The purpose of this study is to understand how beginning teachers actually utilize online resources in their everyday teaching contexts. Using a qualitative interview study design, the researchers investigated beginning teachers' use of online resources in three dimensions: professional tasks, emotional/personal support, and teaching practice. The…

Research continues to support the many teaching and learning benefits of one-to-one laptop learning. Benefits range from improved student engagement and teacher-student interactions to the attainment of 21st century skills and the transformation of teacher practice. Additional benefits include improved student writing skills, increased teacher…

The study focuses on the use of technology to design an electronic learning community for students. The importance of social experience in education and social participation through communication is examined through discussion boards of two different freshmen courses offered at Zagreb School of Economics and Management (ZSEM). Effectiveness and…