Many of the precepts that characterize the conceptual and practical work of early childhood education have emerged from "inquiry" that focused on interpretive and qualitative features of the lives of teachers, children, and parents. This paper examines the continuing development of a wide range of "inquiry" approaches in early childhood education…

This study is part of a larger project on teacher research and professional development in the Teacher Enhancement Program (TEP), a master's degree mid-career collaborative program for inservice teachers. Research was initially planned and implemented as a new course which required teachers to do a Systematic Inquiry Project (SIP) in their…

The purpose of this study was to reveal the prevailing instructional method utilized by inquiry-oriented science teachers using national representative teacher data. The first part of the study focuses on the measurement of teaching emphasis on inquiry science or the intended curriculum. The second part focuses on the relationship between the…

This paper reports on a survey administered to 226 mathematics students at a Texas high school with a 99% Hispanic student population. The survey consisted of items that gauged attitudes toward mathematics and the frequency of traditional versus non-traditional classroom activities. A series of analyses of variance were conducted with gender and…

The recent introduction of the Internet into classrooms provides an opportunity for learners to access a wide range of digital resources on the World Wide Web. The development of on-line learning materials can support inquiry-based activities for students as they pursue questions of interest, plan searches, and analyze their findings. This paper…

This paper summarizes a pair of studies titled "The Impact of Longer Term Intervention on Reforming the Approaches to Instruction in Chemistry by Urban Teachers of Physical and Life Sciences at the Secondary School Level" (William J. Priestley, Holly D. Priestley, and Joseph S. Schuckler) and "Profile of Instructional Practices…

This report describes an experiment to provide an inservice program involving problem solving and inquiry, in line with the new Scottish National Guidelines in mathematics, that would have a lasting effect on teachers. The program featured two stages: (1) In the first year teachers were involved in a pair of workshops, were visited at their…

A comprehensive reform of the science curriculum and the methods of teaching and assessing science instruction is underway. This booklet shares ideas drawn from research and promising practices in science education. These ideas are addressed specifically to educators, but are important to anybody concerned with science education in elementary,…

Ten activities that feature a hands-on, student inquiry-based investigatory approach to rocks and minerals are presented. "Guided discovery" and/or inquiry instructional strategies are emphasized. They focus on a student-centered active classroom. Each activity includes the heading, science content, the scientific process skills, objective or…

This digest provides an overview of the Head Start on Science (HSS) program which is designed to encourage the science literacy of preschool children in Head Start programs and to improve the capacity of Head Start teachers, assistants, and parents. The overall goal of the HSS program is threefold: (1) to broaden HSS participants' science…

Excursions, or field trips, are a common component of early childhood programs, seen as a means of enriching the curriculum by providing experiences with people, places, and things in the community. Although excursions have been used as a framework for research on children's memory development, research on the efficacy of excursions in terms of…

Divided into two sections, this booklet demonstrates how the discovery/inquiry approach and values clarification can be used to teach population education. Each part presents a theoretical discussion of a teaching method including its definition, its relevance to population education, some outstanding characteristics that make it suitable for…

One goal of science educators is to help students to understand the nature of scientific knowledge and reasoning. Reported are ideas related to what junior high students do, can and should know about the nature of science and the use of technology in imparting such knowledge. The studies reported in this document are designed to probe junior high…

Research has shown that wait-time (the amount of silence between teacher and student echances) is a part of an interdependent student-teacher interaction system and that the manipulation of this variable has measurable effects on teacher input variables, student outcome variables, and acquisition variables. Since the acquisition of extended…

Three basic assumptions which underlie the public attitude toward the teaching profession should be challenged. The first of these is that people should teach because they love it; the rewards of teaching are intrinsic. The second is that teaching is primarily the transmission of content. The third is that teacher preparation should consist of…