This article reports on a research effort that investigated whether the use of Microcomputer-Based Labs (MBLs), implemented within an inquiry-based activity sequence on phase transformations (melting and freezing), contributes to the development of fourth grade (9-10 year-old) students' conceptual understanding and ability to construct and…

Inquiry has been one of the most prominent reforms in science education. One of the goals of teaching through inquiry methods is to enable students to have experiences that are authentic to scientists' experiences. Too often, inquiry science is taught as either the "scientific method" or as "hands-on," disconnected activities…

The "Realms of Meaning" by Philip H. Phenix emphasizes several key ideas that schools should address in their curriculum planning and implementation. Ethical educators would benefit from this text because it is a timeless work of art that speaks to past and current educational issues. With the federal 2001 No Child Left Behind mandate to…

Expert scientific inquiry involves the generation and use of analogies. How and when students might develop this aspect of expertise has implications for understanding how and when instruction might facilitate that development. In a study of K-8 student inquiry in physical science, we are examining cases of spontaneous analogy generation. In the…

The dawn of a new school year is the perfect time to reflect on last year's successes while setting even higher expectations for the upcoming year. For several years, many new-school-year resolutions have revolved around a common theme: improving the introduction of inquiry skills to young (kindergarten through second grade) learners, particularly…

This article represents our current reflections on our approach to inquiry on emotions in education. Our views reflect an eclectic blend of, educational, psychological, and social historical approaches to inquiry on emotion and emotional regulation. In an effort to explicate our approach, we address our working definitions of emotion and emotional…

Participants in a science professional development field experience were surveyed for their perceptions of the impacts of integrating a wireless local area network (WLAN), pocket PCs, and laptops as tools for enhancing science inquiry. Pocket PCs and laptops were used for data collection and analysis and for communication of research results to…

For at least twenty years educators have wrestled with questions about the appropriate uses of computer technologies in classrooms while spending millions of dollars with neither clarity of purpose nor defined expectations. The private uses of communications technologies by children and youth leave everyone, with a different question--not whether…

This interview with Dr. Hallie Preskill focuses on the organizational change method known as appreciative inquiry (AI), which is described as a process that builds on past successes (and peak experiences) in an effort to design and implement future actions. Preskill takes the philosophy and principles put forth by organizational change AI…

Students examine the bacterial expansion pattern and attempt to relate what they discover to expanding powers of two. They also relate what they see and discover to increasing living space requirements in a world of infinite space and finite space to discover that living space decreases as a function of one over expanding powers of two. The…

Science enquiry activities set in an industrial context are motivating for children and teachers. In this article, the author describes Children Challenging Industry (CCI) project, an initiative developed and coordinated by the Chemical Industry Education Centre at the University of York, and now running in four northern regions of England (Humber…

Students just starting out in communication, or those who have been studying it for a while, often have difficulty understanding the various ways to view "communication." One way to help students make sense of the field is to look at it from the various traditions in the discipline. Craig (1999) identified the similarities and differences among…

If people believe that some property is true of all members of a class such as sofas, then they should also believe that the same property is true of all members of a conjunctively defined subset of that class such as uncomfortable handmade sofas. A series of experiments demonstrated a failure to observe this constraint, leading to what is termed…

The purpose of this paper is to build a predictive model of enrollment that provides data driven analysis to improve undergraduate recruitment efforts. We utilize an inquiry model, which examines the enrollment decisions of students that have made contact with our institution, a medium sized, public, Doctoral I university. A student, who makes an…

This study focuses on professionals' views on knowledge and knowing in learning from conversations. Our main interest was how learning teams of professionals evaluate knowledge exchange and knowledge explication as knowledge productive, based on their initial views on knowledge and knowing. We used a mixed method research design that combined…