Positioned within our field's work on supporting transfer of writing-related knowledge through careful course design, this article describes the development of a pedagogical intervention designed to help students identify knowledge gaps and pose questions about rhetoric and genre. Below, I tell the story of a 2012 teacher research study that…

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of inquiry-based instruction enriched with origami activities on 7th grade students' achievement in reflection symmetry and self-efficacy in geometry. Two classes, instructed by the first author of the paper, were randomly assigned as experimental and control groups. In order to gather data,…

The philosophical foundation for teaching art criticism in schools has been dominated by formalist and expressionist aesthetics, while from a practical point of view it has been influenced by art criticism models that emphasise observation and linguistic practices. Instead of asking students to observe an artwork and make verbal or written…

This paper describes the development of a three-phase approach our team of educational developers finds useful in curriculum projects in our Teaching and Learning Centre. Informed by the literature on the importance of flexibility and iteration (Knight, 2001; Wolf, 2007) and an orientation towards Appreciative Inquiry (Srivastra & Cooperrider,…

Here we report on the development process of the Inquiry Oriented Instructional Measure (IOIM), an instrument for scoring a lesson along seven inquiry-oriented instructional practices. The development of the IOIM was a multi-phase, iterative process that included reviewing K-16 research literature, analyzing videos of classroom instruction, and…

Inquiry-based teaching aims to increase student engagement through the development of the hands-on, minds-on skills, such as critical thinking, collaboration, and communication, needed for the 21st century (The Partnership for 21st Century Skills 2015). This approach respects the complexities of the learning process, values the knowledge and…

Electricity is taught in junior high school science in Australia and many other countries. While electricity is all around us and one would say that its context and relevance are obvious, students generally do not find learning about electricity engaging. The objective of this paper is to describe the development and evaluation of an open inquiry…

The purpose of this meta-analysis was to determine the pre-requisite for and the efficacy of inquiry-based learning to improve academic performance in contrast to traditional lessons. Randomised studies with pre- and post-test design with control and treatment groups were filtered with a priori inclusion criteria and analysed in Review Manager…

The International Literacy Association maintains that effective engagement is the critical component of literacy instruction for adolescents. To effectively engage adolescent students means offering them the opportunity to use literacy in meaningful ways, interact with a variety of texts, participate in assessment for and as learning, and…

Inquiry activities with component visualization tools are increasingly prevalent in K-12 STEM classrooms; however, evidence of their efficacy has primarily been collected from controlled laboratory studies that lack ecological validity or from small-scale classroom interventions that assess learning outcomes proximal to the intervention. Here, the…

Inquiry activities with component visualization tools are increasingly prevalent in K-12 STEM classrooms; however, evidence of their efficacy has primarily been collected from controlled laboratory studies that lack ecological validity or from small-scale classroom interventions that assess learning outcomes proximal to the intervention. Here, the…

The 3-year study described in this paper aims to create new knowledge about inquiry norms in primary mathematics classrooms. Mathematical inquiry addresses complex problems that contain ambiguities, yet classroom environments often do not adopt norms that promote curiosity, risk-taking and negotiation needed to productively engage with complex…

In this article, the authors outline an innovation curriculum that can be taught to elementary-aged students to expand their creative and innovative abilities and potential. The curriculum focuses on divergent and convergent thinking principles embedded in a hands-on learning pedagogy. The curriculum framework is based on an innovation model known…

Research design is a critical topic that is central to research studies in science, social science, and many other disciplines. After identifying the research topic and formulating questions, selecting the appropriate design is perhaps the most important decision a researcher makes. Currently, there is a plethora of literature presenting multiple…

Educational research continues to reiterate the need for inquiry-based instruction in secondary science. However, the patterns of how teachers implement inquiry-based pedagogy have not been thoroughly studied--particularly from a quantitative perspective. This study is based on data from 422 observations of 50 teachers collected during a 5-year…