This book builds on the social nature of learning to provide useful suggestions for reaching reluctant learners. It is based on the assumption that instruction that focuses on students' interests and builds on collaborative and differentiated learning will allow students to move from believing they "can't do mathematics or science" to a feeling of…

The George Lucas Educational Foundation began in 1991 with an ambitious mission: to demonstrate how innovative learning environments in classrooms, supported by powerful new technologies, could revolutionize learning. As an organization founded by George Lucas, its members believed that the same benefits of technology that were transforming…

Using cultured fibroblast cells, undergraduate students explore cell division and the responses of cultured cells to a variety of environmental changes. The students learn new research techniques and carry out a self-designed experiment. Through this project, students enhance their creative approach to scientific inquiry, learn time-management and…

Background: Existing research suggests that one of the challenges for teachers in persisting with innovative inquiry curricula is their difficulty scaffolding students' transitions into technology-supported and open-ended activities. The question of whether students can effectively scaffold one another's transitions has not been previously…

Background/Context: This study builds upon research on teacher professional communities and high school restructuring reforms. It employs a conceptual framework that draws upon theories of "community of practice" and "community of learners." Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: This study analyzes how teachers' professional inquiry…

The National Literacy Act of 1991 provided the funding to begin building an adult literacy staff development infrastructure by requiring all states to increase their staff development funding from 10% to 15%. Inquiry-based staff development was one of the most promising models to emerge from the staff development activities conducted in 1992-1993…

Offering more practical ideas and a rich description of how their curriculum moved from writing and reading to include inquiry, the first half of this book focuses on the authoring cycle and the ways in which educators have used the cycle as a curricular framework. The second half of the book provides detailed descriptions of "curricular…

This book of life science activities introduces a new experimental animal--the WOWBug, "Melittobia digitata"--that is commonly found in nature but has never before been used in the precollege classroom. It includes 20 activities and experiments for grades 5-12, that cover topics from basic orientation to ecological interactions, from physical…

This pilot study explored the characteristics of children's co-inquiry with a mentor and the changes occurring in their questioning with prolonged engagement in mediated inquiry. Six graduate students, who were practicing teachers, acted as mentors to individual students for inquiry into child-selected topics for 10 weeks. Children ranged in age…

Although interviewing looks easy, it is much more complicated than it appears, and generally, students are not taught how to conduct an interview. Planning and preparation must include research about the subject of the interview and the person being interviewed. Good questions build on the question before, make the person being interviewed think,…

FOUNDATIONS is a monograph series intended for those working to better science, mathematics, and technology education in the United States. This volume examines opportunities and challenges for those on the front lines of science education in elementary and middle schools. Designed as a resource for teachers and administrators who have not yet…

Teachers interested in fostering science learning through inquiry or projects must play a complex role in discourse with students. They must scaffold student activities in the classroom without taking away students' active roles. This paper provides a framework for a specific form of scaffolding open-ended science inquiry based on the notion of…

The research question used for this study was Can elementary classroom teachers identify "familiar" science manipulatives as well as the availability of manipulatives and percentage of time they are used in their classroom? Questions were also asked to determine factors that influence manipulative use, science units that are appropriate…

The purpose of this study is to examine patterns of implementation of an inquiry-oriented science program for elementary school students. Project SEED (Science for Early Education Development) is a hands-on science education program for elementary school students in grades kindergarten through 5th. Teachers in 20 elementary schools in Pasadena…

This Digest discusses Problem-Based Learning (PBL), a method developed by H.S. Barrows (1986), and originally created to prepare medical students for real-world problems by letting them solve medical problems based on real cases. The Digest contends that PBL can situate language learning in the real world by posing problems like those found in…