University-workplace partnerships are strategies increasingly called for in higher education. This article reports on collaborative knowledge production between employed professional chemical engineers (registered for higher degrees) and their university-based supervisors (researchers in the field of chemical engineering). The study draws on a…

Most museum educators strive for their programs to have positive effects on students, but what impact do they really have? What factors, including museum-school programs, contribute to positive academic performance and critical thinking in particular? This article examines the Guggenheim Museum's artist-in-residence program, Learning Through Art…

This paper makes a contribution to the theory and practice of educational action research by introducing two theoretical and methodological resources as part of a personal review of sustained professional experience: "appreciative inquiry" and the "enneagram". It is more than a theoretical exercise, however, because it also…

This article examines an application of appreciative inquiry (AI), a contemporary approach to organizational change that is increasingly evident in the business world, as a participative means of school improvement. AI appears relevant to contemporary themes in literature on school improvement such as self-evaluation, capacity-building and…

This article presents the author's experiences during a 5-day tour at Reggio Emilia, Italy, that is well known for the phrase, "the hundred languages of children" (Edwards, Gandini, & Forman, 1993). The author saw the infinite ways that children expressed their ideas in each Reggio school being visited. The author found three means…

Inquiry-based learning was used to enhance an undergraduate molecular biology course at Georgia Southern University, a primarily undergraduate institution in rural southeast Georgia. The goal was to use a long-term, in-class project to accelerate higher-order thinking, thereby enabling students to problem solve and apply their knowledge to novel…

Subjects such as techniques for genetic diagnosis, cloning, sequencing, and gene therapy are now part of our lives and raise important questions about ethics, future medical diagnosis, and such. Students from different countries observe this explosion of biotechnological applications regardless of their social, academic, or cultural backgrounds,…

As a Chaplain working in the Anglican school system in Melbourne, Australia, my concern is with the spiritual development of students. This year I have been trialing the educational application of activities used in creative arts therapy. Continuing the theme of my recent doctoral studies in children's spirituality, I am concerned that education…

Drawing on research supported within the Scottish "Applied Educational Research Scheme" this paper explores the use of the Virtual Research Environment (VRE) in developing "communities of enquiry" in Scottish education and research. It focuses on the role of VREs in influencing collaborative working and educational research.…

A new, fast and effective colorimetric analysis of the artificial sweetener aspartame is presented for application in undergraduate laboratory courses. This new method incorporates the use of a modified biuret reagent for selective detection and analysis of aspartame in aqueous solutions. The modified reagent is less caustic than the traditional…

This study describes the improvement in 20 sixth grades students' reasoning abilities in the context of structured or semi-structured inquiries conducted during an after-school science club. The findings shed light on the improvement in student reasoning and on the specific areas of student difficulties. Overall reasoning skills showed more or…

Due to his work to determine how cholera was spread in the 18th century, John Snow (1813-1858) has been hailed as the father of modern epidemiology. This article presents an inquiry model based on his life and work, which teachers can use to develop a series of biology lessons involving the history and nature of science. The lessons presented use…

This article explores the concept of community of enquiry through an examination of 3 case studies: (a) a school-based community of enquiry involving pupils, teachers, and researchers; (b) a community of enquiry involving teachers from around 100 different schools in a Scottish local authority, together with policy advisers and researchers; and…

While the knowledge economy has reshaped the world, schools lag behind in producing appropriate learning for this social change. Science education needs to prepare students for a future world in which multiple representations are the norm and adults are required to "think like scientists." Location-based augmented reality games offer an…

Laboratory and demonstration have long been used to supplement lecture in chemistry education. Current research indicates that students are better served by laboratories which exercise the higher-order cognitive skills, such as inquiry-based laboratories. However, the time and the resources available to perform these recommended types of…