Increasingly, students are facing hostility and violence as a result of one or more of their social group memberships. Such prejudicial attitudes and actions contribute to antagonistic intergroup relationships in public schools (i.e., K-12). This article examines dialogic approaches to prejudice reduction, with a specific emphasis on intergroup…

Children's life experiences can position their exploration of global cultural communities within early childhood classrooms. Some early childhood educators, however, are concerned that many young children do not have direct experience of global cultures and thus believe that differences between cultural practices will be confusing to young…

Connected learning is claimed to support children to connect their formal learning with wider social network and media tools in an interest-driven and inquiry-oriented manner. In a formal context there are few successful implementations of connected learning. This study explores how a kindergarten community of 8 adults and 42 children, equipped…

In this paper, we explore how students' engagement varies in different STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) learning environments. More specifically, we focus on the significance of a learning environment applying an integrated STEM (iSTEM) approach and the significance of STEM learning environments' student-centredness. Moreover,…

This document presents the proceedings of the 24th Annual Research Forum held June 27, 2019, at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Included are the following eleven action research papers: (1) How Does Student Goal Setting Affect Motivation to Learn? (Wendell Dunn); (2) Combatting Confirmation Bias: How Writing from Opposing…

How do you support busy school leaders and teachers to take advantage of the strong body of evidence now available about effective teaching, school, and leadership practices? How do we grow our understanding of teaching, school, and principal leadership practices nationally, so that the system can learn and improve? What are the strengths and…

Background: In this paper, I share a case study of a teacher's work on mathematics tasks in the context of a 'mathematics for teaching' course aiming to develop mathematical content understandings and mathematical practices among primary teachers in one South African province. The course was developed in a national context of concerns about the…

The Innovative Technology in Science Inquiry (ITSI) project is a learning portal with hundreds of free, customizable science, math, and engineering activities funded by the National Science Foundation at the Concord Consortium, a nonprofit research and development organization dedicated to transforming education through technology. The project…

The introductory physical geology laboratory courses taught at North Carolina State University aims to promote scientific thinking and learning through the use of scientific inquiry-based activities. A rubric describing five possible levels of inquiry was applied to characterize the laboratory activities in the course. Two rock and mineral…

Imagine middle and high school science classes without a science fair. Participation in science fairs is declining (Harmon 2011), a trend that some teachers, parents, and students find disturbing. The authors opine that the decline in science fairs calls for critically reviewing the potential disconnect between the aims and outcomes of science…

The integration of science and agriculture has been discussed since the inception of agricultural education. However, the standards-based focus in public secondary education and changing climate of agriculture has brought science integration back to the forefront. Though research has indicated that the integration of science into agricultural…

Developing argumentation-based inquiry practices requires teachers and students to be explicit about classroom norms that support these practices. In this study, we asked: "How can a teacher scaffold the development of argumentation-based inquiry norms and practices in a mathematics classroom?" A primary classroom (aged 9-10) was…

Although the NCATE Blue Ribbon Panel Report challenges those responsible for teacher preparation to design clinically rich programs, there is little discussion about preparing teacher educators to actualize these innovations. This study explored how practitioner inquiry could serve as a mechanism to facilitate the development of the next…

Science lessons using inquiry only or history of science with inquiry were used for explicit reflective nature of science (NOS) instruction for second-, third-, and fourth-grade students randomly assigned to receive one of the treatments. Students in both groups improved in their understanding of creative NOS, tentative NOS, empirical NOS, and…

The article "Conversation as Inquiry: A Conversation with Instructional Designers" (Campbell, Schwier & Kenny 2006) appeared in the "Journal of Learning Design" Volume 1, Issue 3 in 2006. Nine years on, Professor Katy Campbell, Dean of the Faculty of Extension, University of Alberta, reflects upon the arguments articulated…