The purpose of this paper is to report on the results of a study that examines whether the Community of Inquiry (CoI) dimensions of social, teaching, and cognitive presence distinctively exist in e-learning environments. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. First, the author will briefly review recent studies on the dimensions of this…

Challenged to re-consider his teaching practices, the author conducted a classroom research study designed to investigate and improve how he uses film to teach middle school students about history. He conducted this study in collaboration with his class of twenty-nine grade eight social studies students, who represented a range of ethnic…

Most parents of gifted children are aware of the benefit of having books and other hands-on learning materials available to their children. However, there is more involved in creating a thoughtful and intellectual learning environment at home than just books and science kits. The way a group communicates, what it communicates, and what it values…

Within the already limited literature on instructional practices in detracked classrooms, there are even fewer research-based studies of detracked science classrooms. This article attempts to address this gap in the research literature, delving into the unique challenges and instructional responses to teaching detracked science. The authors report…

This longitudinal case-study aimed at examining whether purposely teaching for the promotion of higher order thinking skills enhances students' critical thinking (CT), within the framework of science education. Within a pre-, post-, and post-post experimental design, high school students, were divided into three research groups. The experimental…

Narrative inquiry and self-study are used as analytic and conceptual lenses to examine the author's teacher education course where he attempted to introduce the relevance and centrality of race and racism in society and thus education. Implications of the study point to the important role of personal experiences in curriculum development and…

Teachers can use pedometers to facilitate inquiry learning and show students the need for mathematics in scientific investigation. The authors conducted activities with secondary students that investigated intake and expenditure components of the energy balance algorithm, which led to inquiries about pedometers and related data. By investigating…

This paper excerpts a report based on the National Academy of Education's "Preparing Teachers for a Changing World: What Teachers Should Learn and Be Able to Do," which summarizes research on learning, teaching, and teacher education. In this article, the authors discuss how teachers can prepare to become highly qualified and how they can acquire…

As our understanding of learning focuses on the whole person rather than individual aspects of learning, so the process of learning is beginning to be studied from a wide variety of perspectives and disciplines. This handbook presents a comprehensive overview of the contemporary research into learning: it brings together a diverse range of…

All educators should want to provide students with the best possible education, and this is done through curriculum selection. "Ways of Knowing Through the Realms of Meaning" by Dr. William A. Kritsonis (2007) presents a detailed plan for schools to develop and implement modern curriculum that is perennial. Following Dr. Kritsonis's fundamental…

This book sets out a constructivist, inquiry-based approach to instruction. The approach builds on clear understandings of children's current levels of knowledge, where their learning should progress to, and the means by which children learn early numeracy topics. The methods presented in this book have been used extensively by practitioners in…

This article documents a collaborative, teacher inquiry process to uncover a diverse sample of 271 students from an urban high school reflect on teachers they admire and classes in which they feel the most comfortable. The findings indicate that the students described teachers in terms of who the teacher is as a person, the role that he or she…

In this online exploration of sound energy and the human ear, students carry out an inquiry-based activity, which leads them to websites featuring a diagram of a human ear, an interactive demonstration of the Doppler effect, a model of longitudinal waves, and an animation of human hearing. In the activity, students formulate, justify, and evaluate…

The "National Science Education Standards" provide a vision and standard of science instruction that includes not only the factual, content-rich history of science but also an understanding of the processes and skills necessary to "do" science. Moreover, the "Standards" provide the framework for science instruction that embodies the use of…

Increasing numbers of music education researchers have begun to use qualitative methods to examine research topics using interviews, observations, documents, and archival data. In this article, I review qualitative research methodology and its origins and methods, discuss topics that have been studied by music education researchers using…