Just what do children get out of inquiry? Good inquiry activities help students hone their inquiry abilities and teach them about the nature of science. But inquiry is also a way to teach science content, and teachers need to know if this instruction is helping children gain these important ideas. So, how do teachers know what students are…

Teachers can use inquiry to make sure that student learning is hands-on and minds-on. There are many levels of inquiry and teachers can even include some of their favorite cookbook labs after modifying them. Inquiry does not always mean lots of time, money, materials, and mess. One of the most important things that inquiry does require of…

Everything moves. Even apparently stationary objects such as houses, roads, or mountains are moving because they sit on a spinning planet orbiting the Sun. Not surprisingly, the concepts of motion and the forces that affect moving objects are an integral part of the middle school science curriculum. However, middle school students are often taught…

It has long been a goal of science education in the United States that students leave school with a robust understanding of the nature of science. Decades of research show that this does not happen. Inquiry-based instruction is advocated as a means for developing such understanding, although there is scant direct evidence that it does. There is a…

Expert scientific inquiry involves the generation and use of analogies. How and when students might develop this aspect of expertise has implications for understanding how and when instruction might facilitate that development. In a study of K-8 student inquiry in physical science, we are examining cases of spontaneous analogy generation. In the…

This study explored the understandings of data and measurement that school students draw upon, and the ways that they reason from data, when carrying out a practical science inquiry task. The two practical tasks used in the study each involved investigations of the relationships between two independent variables (IVs) and a dependent variable…

Recent changes in the history syllabi stress the importance of developing an investigative/enquiry method of learning involving the framing of questions, subsequent research, and the presentation of findings. Scotland has made several attempts to assess not only the end result (the paper) but also the process itself and now uses an extended essay…

The dawn of a new school year is the perfect time to reflect on last year's successes while setting even higher expectations for the upcoming year. For several years, many new-school-year resolutions have revolved around a common theme: improving the introduction of inquiry skills to young (kindergarten through second grade) learners, particularly…

Projects based in the community give students the opportunity to engage in investigation as scientists and apply their work to make a difference at home. Community-based projects allow for easy implementation of high-end inquiry in the science classroom. When students become involved in research based in authentic community problems they gain a…

This article represents our current reflections on our approach to inquiry on emotions in education. Our views reflect an eclectic blend of, educational, psychological, and social historical approaches to inquiry on emotion and emotional regulation. In an effort to explicate our approach, we address our working definitions of emotion and emotional…

The purpose of this study was to examine how different inquiry experiences affect in-service science teachers' performance in terms of their questions and classroom actions. Teachers in a workshop experience proceeded through structured, guided, and full inquiry stations where materials to make foam were provided. Participants were 26 in-service…

The experiences of South Korean female students studying at American postsecondary institutions have been little examined in relation to gender and racial stereotypes. This qualitative inquiry explores the stereotypes encountered by Korean female doctoral students, their personal coping strategies, and their perceptions of gender equality while…

Participants in a science professional development field experience were surveyed for their perceptions of the impacts of integrating a wireless local area network (WLAN), pocket PCs, and laptops as tools for enhancing science inquiry. Pocket PCs and laptops were used for data collection and analysis and for communication of research results to…

For at least twenty years educators have wrestled with questions about the appropriate uses of computer technologies in classrooms while spending millions of dollars with neither clarity of purpose nor defined expectations. The private uses of communications technologies by children and youth leave everyone, with a different question--not whether…

This interview with Dr. Hallie Preskill focuses on the organizational change method known as appreciative inquiry (AI), which is described as a process that builds on past successes (and peak experiences) in an effort to design and implement future actions. Preskill takes the philosophy and principles put forth by organizational change AI…