It is essential for teacher training institutions to reflect continually on changes in education policy with the view of ensuring that teacher training programmes that take the present needs and policies into account are in place. This article describes a four-year process through which a particular faculty of education went in search of an…

Constructivist pedagogies are generally not considered to support the teaching of mathematics for externally assessed examination-based courses. In large part, teachers have believed that such approaches are inefficient in covering a set syllabus. This article summarises the author's learning journey in Year 12 mathematics in 2004 where attempts…

Interviews with key scientists involved in research on severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), together with analysis of media reports and documentaries produced during and after the SARS epidemic, revealed many interesting aspects of nature of science (NOS) and authentic scientific inquiry. This novel insight into practice in the rapidly…

Conference attendees arrive at the registration desk at 9:00 a.m. sharp, eager to start their day. While standing in line, they talk excitedly about the sessions they've chosen to see, the original investigation they'll be presenting, off-site field trips for which they've registered, and the businesses scheduled to have booths in the Exhibitor's…

There has been rising concern about the disconnect between universities, their communities and society at large. This is of special interest to professional schools, whose missions are founded on connecting practice and theory. We argue that cooperative inquiry, an action-based methodology, can help foster connectedness and contribute to healing…

Students' questions play an important role in meaningful learning and scientific inquiry. They are a potential resource for both teaching and learning science. Despite the capacity of students' questions for enhancing learning, much of this potential still remains untapped. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to examine and review the…

This study has resulted in an elementary science methods course that facilitates the identification and description of the changes in students' conceptions and understanding of inquiry teaching, and the cultural influences, reflections, and situational factors influencing these changes. Written responses to open-ended questions, reflective…

Over the past few years, there has been considerable explication of what it means to think historically. According to this research literature, expert historians think about such issues as placing historical events within context and chronology, considering the differing perspectives of participants in events, and taking the bias and intention of…

Teachers who attempt to use inquiry-based, student-centered instructional tasks face challenges that go beyond identifying well-designed tasks and setting them up appropriately in the classroom. Because solution paths are usually not specified for these kinds of tasks, students tend to approach them in unique and sometimes unanticipated ways.…

This article aims at discussing how Dynamic Decision Network (DDN) can be employed to tackle the challenges in modeling temporally variable scientific inquiry skills and provision of adaptive pedagogical interventions in INQPRO, a scientific inquiry exploratory learning environment for learning O'level Physics. We begin with an overview of INQPRO…

This article describes preparation and delivery of high school mathematics lessons that integrate mathematics and astronomy through The Geometer's Sketchpad models, traditional proof, and inquiry-based activities. The lessons were created by a University of Texas UTeach preservice teacher as part of a project-based field experience in which high…

For more than 50 years, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) has been instrumental in developing an analytical model for understanding the relationships between educational policy (the intended curriculum), classroom and instructional practices (the implemented curriculum), and educational learning…

As Gail Bush reports, "each section of this monograph includes articles that invite the reader to explore his or her own response to the authors' messages... The purpose here is not to set in stone principles and practices to be followed blindly but to present a disposition toward intellectual behaviors that seriously consider our responsibilities…

An important aspect of developing science literacy for all students is developing science-literate teachers. With the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act, many middle school teachers found themselves in a position where they were no longer qualified to teach middle school science. This study was designed to help science teachers…

The authors of this study document one middle school classroom in an attempt to understand how inquiry learning, supported with technological tools, can provide students with opportunities to develop ownership of science content knowledge. Case study and collaborative teacher researcher methods were utilized to document the implementation of a…