In this article, the authors highlight the potential for rethinking approaches to community and social change interventions that draw on participatory action research at the organizational and community level. They distinguish problem-centric from opportunity-centric approaches to social change. Theory on social norms suggests that problem-centric…

This contribution is set in the context of the burgeoning of practitioner inquiry in Australia, taking account also of various European and North American initiatives, against the background of the notion of action research as an emancipatory project. Practitioner inquiry, under these conditions, requires that the work move beyond a utilitarian…

This article is a report of a qualitative research study into the aesthetic and spiritual dimensions of the lifelong learning practices of eight experienced educators. The research is grounded in a narrative tradition of research on teacher development where teacher learning is viewed as a creative, holistic, relational endeavour in which the…

In this paper we suggest that the pursuit of ahistorical, universal truths in education is antithetical to creativity, learning and motivation in preservice teachers. We argue that learning to teach is a dynamic process embedded in networks of power in which educational truths are politically "accomplished" rather than innocently discovered. We…

Opaque film canisters are readily available, cheap, and useful for scientific inquiry in the classroom. They can also be surprisingly versatile and useful as a tool for stimulating scientific inquiry. In this article, the authors describe inquiry activities using film canisters for preservice teachers, including a "black box" activity and several…

Books, cartoons, movies, and video games provide engaging opportunities to get both science and nonscience students excited about physics. An easy way to use these media in one's classroom is to have students view clips and identify unusual events, odd physics, or list things that violate our understanding of the physics that governs our universe.…

This study investigated the process by which shared understanding develops in a chat learning space. It used a practical inquiry model to assess the development of cognitive presence. The study also explored how the pattern of conversation in synchronous discussion supports cognitive presence and how cognitive presence changes over time. Results…

Environmental identity, or how we orient ourselves to the natural world, leads us to personalise abstract global issues and take action (or not) according to our sense of who we are. For example, are we willing to give up our luxurious cars for more fuel-efficient models even though we know that the earth is warming? In an era where web-based…

Frantic parents trying to ensure that their children can maintain an edge throughout their school careers have become a fixture of today's society. Perhaps one key to the puzzle of academic motivation is to make school make sense, not just to those who structure the school systems or rely on them to educate their children, but to the young people…

These teacher-tested ideas will guide students in creating true inquiry-based projects. Two of the ideas, the Topic Selection Wizard and Science Project Timeline, are appropriate for all science fair programs, even new ones. For existing programs, the Black Box of Project Improvement and After-School Project Clinic improve project quality and…

Considering how to better assess student writing, middle school teachers Molly Fanning and Brigid Schmidt revolutionize their conception of themselves as teachers. They challenge all educators to become what Henry A. Giroux calls "transformative intellectuals" by identifying as writers, practicing collaborative inquiry, and sharing their work with…

To promote the use of scientific inquiry methods in K-12 classrooms, departments of teacher education must provide science teachers with experiences using such methods. To comply with state and national mandates, an apprenticeship course was designed to afford preservice secondary science teachers opportunities to engage in an authentic, extended,…

Study is conducted to find whether the students learning chemistry using different instructional methodologies develop comparable chemistry content knowledge. Results found the comparable chemistry content knowledge among the samples.

Many researchers emphasize the significance of employing inquiry learning in shaping preservice elementary teachers' tendencies to teach science. Using an interpretive research methodology, this study examined the influence of employing an inquiry-based teaching approach on teaching biology to preservice elementary teachers at the Hashemite…

Pre-service teachers from Texas and Indiana in the United States and from Queensland, Australia, observed the Moon for a semester and compared and contrasted their findings in asynchronous Internet discussion groups. The 188 pre-service teachers were required to conduct inquiry investigations for their methods coursework which included an initial…