The term Professional Learning Community is commonplace, and it holds many meanings and suggestions. For the purpose of this essay, however, we discuss a specific Professional Learning Community (PLC) that was established in a high school, fifteen months prior to the application of a survey instrument to evaluate participants' perceptions on the…

The power of teacher inquiry is revealed when educators examine their practices with the purpose of making necessary changes to improve the learning opportunities of their multilingual students, and working conditions in schools. Dr. Nevarez-La Torre, proposes a model for conducting classroom inquiry that teachers may follow to pursue important…

Philosophers, cognitive scientists, anthropologists, and psychologists have argued convincingly that the act of questioning is central to thinking, to storing and communicating knowledge, even to several important types of social interaction. But while scholars of higher education have written extensively on the topic of questioning for more than…

In this article, the author begins by describing an important present moment in curriculum studies. He then rethinks this moment and briefly explores the implications of this new line of thought for leadership development. At the 2007 American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies' (AAACS) business meeting, Pinar (2007a) presented…

The researchers engaged in cooperative inquiry in order to explore screencasts as online instructional tools. In total, each researcher analyzed 37 screencasts, which provided over two hours of instruction. The content area of these screencasts concentrated on teaching specific computing procedures (e.g., how to install web server software or how…

With the increasing prominence of "How science works" in science courses in England and the imperative of equipping students to engage with the controversies thrown up by the advance of science, science departments need new teaching strategies. Here we describe the application of "Dramatic Enquiry" to GCSE science. The project,…

This qualitative research presents an expanded perspective of literacy practices in which young students engage in multiple literacies while exploring personal inquiries about Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, LA. An extended classroom example and analysis taken from a broader research project focusing on early multiliteracies, illustrates the…

This paper describes a participatory design approach to the development of inquiry-based learning supported through a technology toolkit. The work is part of an interdisciplinary project--Personal Inquiry (PI). The paper focuses on the approach we adopted, concentrating in particular on the two mediating artefacts we used to guide and frame the…

Does rhetoric have a place in the discourse of human rights? Without certain reply, as the dilemmas of defining, claiming, and promoting human rights appear both to include and exclude the rhetorical gesture, this question invites inquiry into the preface of the contemporary human rights regime, the moment of the aftermath that provokes a struggle…

Throughout the school year I invited children in a Grade Two/Three learning strategies classroom to participate in a visual narrative inquiry. The intention was to explore children's knowledge of community in artful ways; the children photographed and wrote in what was often an iterative process, where writing/talking and photographing…

Digital photography energizes students and focuses their attention on their environment. The personal connection to science helps students develop a habit of mind in which everything they see inside or outside of school can prompt them to wonder and investigate. This article describes how first graders explore their school grounds with cameras in…

This work examines commonly used particulate-level pictures meant to illustrate gases. These pictures are found throughout textbooks in the middle grades through the college level, as well as in questions frequently used to assess conceptual learning in students. This work uses the kinetic-molecular theory of gases to demonstrate the inaccuracies…

The relationship between Brighton High School (BHS) and Boston College (BC) spans several decades. Professors from multiple departments at the university--not only teacher educators but professors of psychology, measurement, and arts and sciences--have walked, as regular parts of the school community, the halls of the gothic-style high school…

In this article, the author revisits an interview with Ava Montalvo--a mother of two living in Albuquerque, New Mexico--which initially confounded her interpretive resources. This reflexive, performative article examines the role of excess as an analytical lens through which to understand maternal subjectivity and elaborates the methodological…

This qualitative research study explores the experiences of a diverse group of teacher candidates engaging in an aesthetic line of inquiry within two teacher preparation courses at a large, public urban university in New York City. Research centered on the question "What are the different ways that teacher candidates make meaning from a…