This paper explores how teachers with different teaching styles conceptualized and implemented a multimedia-supported problem-based inquiry (PBI) unit. We focus on how the teachers supported student thinking and examine underlying belief, knowledge, and dispositional factors that may account for differences in the teachers' practices. We…

This chapter argues that a critical analysis of the interlocking notions of class, race, and gender is needed to enable adult education to respond to growing inequalities.

Involving students in inquiry-based exercises is much more difficult than simply providing activities for them to do in the classroom. While active learning suggests students are physically participating in the lesson, inquiry learning requires that they are also mentally participating in it. Academic theorists agree it is more the mental…

Math in a Cultural Context (MCC) was developed from ethnographic work with Yup'ik elders and teachers. The need for culturally based curricula seems obvious to those in the field of educational anthropology, but not necessarily to policymakers. Two case studies of novice teachers, one cultural "insider" and one "outsider,"…

This paper reports on a 2-year study designed to investigate the trajectory of change in an urban 5th grade teacher as she introduces science inquiry using the Web-Based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE). Data for this study included videotapes and transcripts of classroom instruction, and audiotapes and transcripts of interviews conducted with…

Learning science in a meaningful way involves more than doing a series of activities directed towards anticipated outcomes. Learning science entails teacher and children talking together as "co-constructors" of knowledge (Barnes, 1976). Karen Gallas (1995) has described her long-term observations of the kinds of talk which contribute to…

The basic contention that a more imaginative, creative, and challenging approach will result in better achievement in SATs--in other words, if the children enjoy their science they will do better--was the basis of a project at Oxford Brookes University. The project was devised to encourage and enable the participating teachers to develop a…

The reform movement, with its bold and innovative approaches that focus on student-centered learning, has been able to uncover the richness in undergraduate mathematics. The most outstanding pedagogical practices take into account the environment in which learning occurs as well as the background of the student body. Mathematics educators should…

An interdisciplinary course centered on mathematical ideas (involving infinity and geometry) is described. The course was developed by the authors, both mathematicians, as a vehicle for engaging students in learning about mathematical ideas that are rarely found in the general undergraduate curriculum. The course was offered to honors students…

This paper develops a rhetorically centered model of community literacy in the theoretical and practical context of local publics--those spaces where ordinary people develop public voices to engage in intercultural inquiry and deliberation. Drawing on fifteen years of action research in the Community Literacy Center and beyond, the authors…

Student reflective ideas were examined with respect to Group Investigation (GI), which was employed in 11th grade Korean earth science classrooms. A modified GI method was implemented during the course of an action research effort consisting of two yearlong projects. Students' writings, which had been produced twice a year, were analyzed to reveal…

Today, educators are expected to achieve high standards of learning for all students as they face the rapid changes brought about by the technologies and social challenges of this age. However, their expectations of what schools can do are really still an expression of their cultural anxieties. In a basic way, these challenges are the same as they…

The proliferation of online courses underscores the need to re-examine the foundations upon which courses are grounded. In particular, an emerging perspective in science education requires designers to account for scientific inquiry in student-centered science learning environments. With a focus on open-ended learning environments and grounded…

The relation between teaching and research is a defining feature of a modern university and of academic identity. Many universities claim a close relation between the two as well as a strong critical orientation. Yet the gap between claims and practice in higher education appears to be widening as government and institutional policies increasingly…

This research study aimed to describe the experiences of Professional Development School teachers who were living an inquiry stance toward teaching. Throughout this study, "living an inquiry stance toward teaching" was used in an attempt to describe teacher inquiry as a way of being and knowing for these PDS teachers more than methods for a…