Questions form the core of both the learning experience and the teaching experience. Because of their importance in the educational enterprise, questions (i.e., their structure and use) should receive more attention from educators. The authors construct what they call productive questions (those questions that produce meaningful responses) and…

Critical, creative and collaborative thinking should be at the centre of all 21st century teaching and learning. "Creating Thinking Classrooms" is loaded with examples, stories and strategies for reinvigorating schools with this quality thinking. Written for leaders who support teachers, this guide treats educational change as a process…

This case study describes the interactions between pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and practitioner inquiry as observed in a residency-model teacher preparation program. In the Math and Science Teacher Education Residency (MASTER), novice teachers engaged in iterative cycles of assessing student thinking and using that assessment to reflect on…

Written feedback provided by the teacher to his or her students is an important aspect of formative assessment. After a theoretical introduction to teacher prerequisites for giving feedback and to the quality of written feedback in general, results from an implementation of feedback methods in classrooms will be described for the cases of Germany,…

It is widely recognized that the great challenges of the 21st Century cannot be understood or addressed through one discipline operating in a silo of research. Solutions to grand scale problems require varied expertise and multiple disciplinary methodologies to generate plausible solution strategies. The individuals involved in transdisciplinary…

This article reviews a flexible model for engaging students in statistical enquiry. Data from a student survey are first used to stimulate interest and introduce statistical concepts, while easing the transition to working with larger "real world" secondary data.

This article outlines a study of praxis. Inspired by my reading of Jacques Rancière's ("The ignorant schoolmaster: Five lessons in intellectual emancipation", trans. K. Ross, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1991) influential text, "The Ignorant School Master", I explore the practical applications of his work for teaching…

Students' understandings of foundational concepts such as noncovalent interactions, pH and pK[subscript a] are crucial for success in undergraduate biochemistry courses. We developed a guided-inquiry activity to aid students in making connections between noncovalent interactions and pH/pK[subscript a]. Students explore these concepts by examining…

Reading through the articles in this issue of "Communication Education" took incoming editor, Deanna Dannels, back in time to reflect on a camping trip in North Carolina where she and her daughter went gem mining. She reflects on the the one piece of advice from the employee who taught them how to gem mine: "If you want to find…

Implementing inquiry-based modules within a course can be effective and enable instructor experimentation, without completely transforming an entire course. For instructors new to inquiry-based learning (IBL), we state hallmarks of the practice and point out the merits of strong IBL communities. An inquiry-based approach may alleviate some current…

Intertwining case study with practitioner inquiry, a research team seeks language for the conduct of mindful curricular enactment in an alternative public middle school. The school is committed to valuing students' narratives of experience, the resources all bring to the school, and the given particularities of contexts, subject matter, and…

The authors discuss the need for critical thinking that examines the foundations of the field of educational technology. They provide an overview of two activities that can allow this kind of examination to take place. The first focuses on identifying assumptions and evaluating their implications. The second focuses on Finn's ("Audiovisual…

Narrative inquiry is a research approach used for the collection of personal accounts about an issue or experience among a pre-selected group of informants (participants) and assumes that we are all "storied individuals"--holding our own narratives and life stories about our experiences. As part of the PhD in educational research that I…

Learning in communities of practice (CoPs) makes up a significant portion of today's knowledge gain. However, only little technological support is tailored specifically toward CoPs and their particular strengths and challenges. Even worse, CoPs often do not possess the resources to host or develop a software ecosystem to support their activities.…

Experts argue that preservice programs should focus on a defined set of core teaching practices and structure their curriculum around them. Such experts argue that practice-based teacher educators must "represent" and "decompose" core practices with novices and offer them opportunities to "approximate" those practices…