In group activities, students work collaboratively to accomplish specific objectives. Students have to engage and interact with each other in order to complete collaborative assignments. One way that students stay engaged is through asking questions. In the research reported here, we looked at peer-to-peer questions in the context of a…

In recent years, there has been an effort to develop reform-oriented and inquiry-based early science instruction. Preliminary studies suggest that participation in inquiry-based learning activities promotes preschoolers' learning and interest in science. In addition, science education in early childhood is of great importance to many aspects of a…

Educators have traditionally taught through topics and content, the content being discrete pieces of factual information (e.g., capital cities, dates of significant events, names of dinosaurs, parts of plants). While such factual information is important, learners do not always understand how to transfer the content to meaningful and authentic…

This research aims to implement the guided inquiry learning model to improve the understanding of concepts and critical thinking skills of Vocational High School (SMK) students. The quasi-experiment method with the randomized pretest-posttest control group design was used to obtain data from students of one of the Vocational High Schools (SMK) in…

"Teaching STEM Literacy" is comprised of ready-made, open-ended lessons reviewed and tested by teachers, which help educators integrate STEM learning into the early childhood classroom. Lessons are linked to the Next Generation Science Standards, and encourage creative ideas for three-dimensional STEM learning that are developmentally…

As part of the "Next Generation Science Standards" (K-LS1-1), students are expected to develop an understanding of what living things need in order to live and grow. The lessons provided in this article help students understand the difference between living and nonliving things, and help them acquire important background knowledge to…

This chapter argues that expert practice is an inquiry that surfaces a hermeneutic relationship between theory, practice, and the world, with implications for new lines of questioning in the Decoding interview.

This case study explores how a science teacher adopted knowledge building and learning analytics to support a class of primary five students to collaboratively inquire and learn about electricity. Specifically, we aim to understand how the teacher implemented a lesson design guided by knowledge building principles of idea improvement and community…

As states, school districts, and teachers continue to adopt the inquiry-based principles of the College, Career, and Civic (C3) Framework, social studies teacher education must engage in a concomitant instructional shift to focus its efforts on preparing inquiry-based educators. One possible approach is to organize social studies teacher education…

Our paper builds on the construct of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) (Vygotsky in Mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1978) to analyze the relationship between students' answers and the help they receive as they construct them. We report on a secondary analysis of…

Research in science in early childhood is an area that has not received much attention (Fleer, M., & Robbins, J. (2003). "Hit and run research" with "hit and miss" results in early childhood science education. "Research in Science Education," 33, 405-431.) and it has been reported that early children teachers lack…

This article explores the multiple educational uses of the question, "what do you mean by_____?" as an interlocutor's conversational gesture during classroom discussion, as a text-based prompt for both encoding/writing and decoding/reading, and as a rhetorical device for an effective oral presentation. Kaitlin Briggs explains that the…

Epistemology, or the study of knowledge and knowing, is foundational for Library and Information Science (LIS) programs, as the recognition of different conceptions of how people "know" can help LIS professions handle diversity, especially gender diversity. The incorporation of epistemology can provide LIS students with more…

Our particular flavor of inquiry-based learning (IBL) uses mathematical discourse, conversations, and discussions to empower students to deepen their mathematical thinking, building on strengths of students in the humanities. We present an organized catalog of powerful questions, discussion prompts, and talk moves that can help faculty facilitate…

Inquiry-based learning is a topic of growing interest in the mathematical community. Much of the focus has been on using these methods in calculus and higher-level classes. This article describes the design and implementation of a set of inquiry-based learning activities in a Math for Liberal Arts course at a small, private, Catholic college.…