Because of its interactive and multimedia nature, the Internet has been touted as an increasingly important aspect of both elementary and secondary education. A recent survey, however, indicated that the Internet and all of its apparent potential is not often used by K-5 social studies teachers. One possible reason for this is that sorting through…

A collaborative team of a teacher-consultant, state education agency associate, and university faculty member facilitated a workshop and monthly inquiry group meetings to support teachers' implementation of student-led Individual Education Programs (IEPs). Through participant-observation and grounded theory analytic methods, we examined issues…

Bruce Joyce has long been involved in efforts to develop collaborative professional inquiry. In this article, he looks back at some of those efforts in the hope that we can draw lessons from them and finally realize the vision that Mike Schmoker set forth in his February article. In the article featured on the cover of the February Kappan, Mike…

Teachers are obligated to engage students in science and excite them about the wonder and amazement of investigating the world. Teachers need to be willing to move from a lecture-oriented classroom to a student-centered classroom that engages students in inquiry. In this article, the author describes how she moved toward a student-centered…

Forensics can serve as the perfect vehicle for science exploration and learning. As part of a professional development workshop, teachers participated in various forensic activities. This article describes an archaeological dig simulation that provides the catalyst for an inquiry-based activity. In this activity, teachers make crime scene…

In a survey of almost 600 high school chemistry teachers, it was found that almost half of them did not use inquiry in their classroom. For the survey, inquiry was defined as any lab in which students write the procedure themselves--the question/purpose/problem could be of the students' own design or provided for them. Many teachers indicated that…

This article tells the story of the design of Learning by Design(tm) (LBD), a project-based inquiry approach to science learning with roots in case-based reasoning and problem-based learning, pointing out the theoretical contributions of both, classroom issues that arose upon piloting a first attempt, ways we addressed those challenges, lessons…

Technology can be used to effectively support FLCs. This chapter explores how technology and a community of inquiry model can be used to facilitate individual reflection and critical discourse about teaching practice. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

Historical inquiry is a multifaceted phenomenon. S. G. Grant describes it as "the passion for pulling ideas apart and putting them back together" (2000, 196). Historical inquiry as an instructional strategy benefits students and the classroom dynamic. It promotes students' appreciation of their personal histories while they are exploring…

The WebQuest as an inquiry-oriented approach in web learning has gained considerable attention from educators and has been integrated widely into curricula in K-12 and higher education. It is considered to be an effective way to organize chaotic internet resources and help learners gain new knowledge through a guided learning environment.…

This paper compares two protocols for web-based instruction using simulations in an introductory physics class. The Inquiry protocol allowed students to control input parameters while the Worked Example protocol did not. Students in the Worked Example group performed significantly higher on a common assessment. The ramifications of this study are…

The best place for students to begin to understand complex environmental relationships is in their own back yards. Doing investigations of ants allows students to establish a baseline survey of ant fauna, test the importance of ants in nutrient cycling and soil structure maintenance, and increase their understanding of the environment and their…

The AIR model we describe in this article is a practical framework for cultivating reflective inquiry into ethical issues that students, faculty, and administrators experience in the midst of busy daily lives and encounter in classroom discussions in a discipline field. The model is highly adaptable to academic and workplace settings and enables…

One of the goals of developing a new chemistry courses is to foster positive student attitudes toward chemistry and to capitalize on both positive and negative experience in helping students to see how teachers can influence students' interests in science with inquiry-based and discovery learning. Additionally the courses are conclusively helpful…

Recent reform movements within the United States have called for science for all and educational reforms to support this goal. In light of these reform movements and concerns regarding learning within urban schools, science educators and policy makers have pushed for the incorporation of learning technologies within schools as a way of creating…