The goal of this project was to help science teachers shift to a more inquiry-based teaching style by supplying learning tools that support a more student-centered approach. The project employed PSI (Personal Study Instrument) Sim Modules, a simulation-based electronic learning environment designed to address misconceptions in middle school…

Space travel, even low Earth orbit, is probably several years away for most of us; however, students and teachers can research the edge of space by participating in the BalloonSat program. BalloonSat is an offshoot of the Space Grant Consortium's very successful RocketSat program. The Arkansas BalloonSat program consists of teacher-initiated…

To promote inquiry-based learning, the authors integrate the anatomy of a scientific journal article into their secondary science curriculum. In this article, they present three classroom activities used to teach students about the function and format of scientific journal articles. The first focuses on journal article figures, the second on…

In this theoretical article the authors discuss the role of technology tools in supporting students' argument construction within the context of middle and high school science. In the first part of the article they focus on the theoretical underpinnings for studying argumentation in school science and report on the difficulties associated with…

A teacher-researcher describes how collaborative inquiries with students into literacy has the potential to develop metacognitive awareness of language and literacy practices, inform practice, and provide opportunities for students to use literacy in meaningful and authentic ways. Drawing upon a teacher-research study into the use of argument…

As part of an inquiry and digital documentary video project, two 12-year-old students studied the Dominican Republic. Over the course of their research, the boys (one of whose parents moved from the Dominican Republic) focused their project on two aspects of the culture of the Dominican Republic: contemporary music (bachata and merengue) and…

This study offers an analysis of the learning of practicing teachers as they acquire a deeper knowledge of mathematics. While some professional developers have shifted part of their focus to helping practicing teachers acquire a deeper knowledge of mathematics (e.g., Stein & Silver, 1996), the results from studies often describe what translates…

Explores an insight offered by Plato in his "Seventh Letter" to explain why the traditional mode-based approach to teaching composition is so attractive and how it can be expanded upon to teach students productive inquiry. Shows how the process-based approach promotes that sort of productive change and suggests how to engage students in…

Explores scientific inquiry as philosophical and behavioral model for online search specialist and information retrieval process. Nature of scientific research is described and online analogs to research concepts of variable, hypothesis formulation and testing, operational definition, validity, reliability, assumption, and cyclical nature of…

Author assess the behavioral objective oriented curriculum and offers an alternative, the Dewey model'', emphasizing inquiry. (SP)

If history is to gain its rightful station in the new social studies, it will have to go beyond its present objective of historical wisdom" to teaching students how to utilize historical methodology in studying the past and as a bridge to the future. (Author/MB)