This article explores the benefits of the Internet to enhance history instruction for all learners. The authors describe a Web-based learning environment, the Virtual History Museum (VHM), that helps teachers create motivating, inquiry-based history units. VHM also allows teachers to build supports for learners with disabilities or other learning…

At present the basic intellectual aim of academic inquiry is to improve knowledge. Much of the structure, the whole character, of academic inquiry, in universities all over the world, is shaped by the adoption of this as the basic intellectual aim. But, judged from the standpoint of making a contribution to human welfare, academic inquiry of this…

In this paper, instructional strategies for sustaining model-based inquiry in an undergraduate chemistry class were analyzed through data collected from classroom observations, a student survey, and in-depth problem-solving sessions with the instructor and students. Analysis of teacher-student interactions revealed a cyclical pattern in which…

This study explores effects of participation by second-semester college general chemistry students in an extended, open-inquiry laboratory investigation. Verbal interactions among a student lab team and with their instructor over three open-inquiry laboratory sessions and two non-inquiry sessions were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed. Coding…

This inquiry investigates action research as a tool to facilitate reflective practice in undergraduate preservice teachers. Typically utilized in graduate programs, action research is a viable tool for increasing preservice teachers' systematic classroom-based inquiry. This process is examined through a theoretical framework of narrative inquiry,…

This article traces the roots of narrative research in the social sciences and education, then centers on "story constellations," a version of narrative inquiry that uncovers teachers' knowledge of school reform in context. A fluid form of investigation that unfolds in a three-dimensional inquiry space, story constellations consists of a flexible…

This article explores the nature of self-study of teacher education practices by examining what self-study is and how it might be conducted and reported. In working through these ideas, the article makes an argument for the need for learning through self-study to be documented in ways that might not only be accessible to others but also meaningful…

From a rhetorical perspective, Mendel's work and its reception elicit two important questions: (a) why were Mendel's arguments so compelling to 20th century biologists? And (b) why where they so roundly ignored by his contemporaries? The focus of this article is to examine the latter question while commenting on the former by employing several…

With the instructor switching positions, alternately assuming the role of questioner and answerer, this paper explores the applicability of circular questioning to the types of interactions in which faculty members engage on a regular basis, such as teaching. Focusing on responses to various questions, the paper speculates that for students to see…

This curriculum consists of a series of Learning Activity Packets (LAPs) on the chemistry involved in different aspects of modern society. It is intended for non-majors and introduces fundamental concepts by engaging students in hands-on learning activities. The LAPs are designed to make connections between chemistry and other fields of interest…

In the United Kingdom, university science undergraduates specialize in a single science subject for the entire 3-4 years of study. This study examines images of the nature of science held by science students in their final year at university. Data are drawn from a longitudinal interview study of 11 students engaged in open-ended project work at…

This paper examines the teacher research process from two points of view: that of a university-based researcher and that of a school-based classroom researcher. Speaking from the experience of engaging in research from both perspectives, the paper presents six reflections on teacher research that describe the special nature of inquiry as conducted…

This paper, in exploring the context for liberal education and the ideas of John Dewey, illustrates the difference between training and inquiry and offers ideas about how the two depend on each other in practice. The paper describes proficiency as a direct result of quality training, which establishes routinized habits. This discussion also…

Designed to introduce students to the world through nonfiction, this book presents easy-to-follow suggestions for class projects, activities, strategies, and learning centers. The book uses an integrated approach to promoting inquiry in the classroom through the use of quality nonfiction. Aimed at middle grade students and using vignettes which…

This supplement to the first and second editions of "Invitations to Science Inquiry" contains about 100 more discrepant events (occurrences or happenings which go against what we usually think likely) presented in the second edition plus 50 additional discrepant events. Discrepant events function by causing dissonance between what is…