The purpose of this three-year study was to examine secondary school students' attitudes about science in classrooms with "resident scientists" who had been trained in inquiry science teaching. The study was based upon a National Science Foundation (NSF) program called Project Flowing Waters, a five-year NSF Graduate STEM Fellows in K-12…

In 2002, Chomsky, Hauser, and Fitch asserted that recursion may be the one aspect of the human language faculty that makes human language unique in the narrow sense--unique to language and unique to human beings. They also argue somewhat more quietly (as do Pinker and Jackendoff 2005) that recursion may be possible outside of language: navigation,…

This paper tells the story of a researcher's analysis process that became a journey to an unfamiliar place and, ultimately, to a new way of conceiving analysis and a new way of seeing--at least, new to the author as researcher. The study was an analysis of interview data gleaned from a series of conversations about what it is to be a musician. She…

Using a hermeneutic approach to inquiry, the author interviewed 8 counsellors in training to gain an understanding of the question, "How do counsellors in training develop, and how do they make sense of what they are doing/what is happening to them?" Their accounts were integrated into a single emerging story that captures their…

This article describes an organizational development tool called appreciative inquiry (AI) and its use in mental health to aid agencies implementing recovery model services. AI is a discursive tool with the power to shift dominant organizational cultures. Its philosophical underpinnings emphasize values consistent with recovery: community,…

The purpose of this study was to understand the impact of an apprenticeship program on high school students' understanding of the nature of scientific inquiry. Data related to seventeen students' understanding of science and scientific inquiry were collected through open-ended questionnaires. Findings suggest that although engagement in authentic…

In this guided-inquiry activity, students investigate the ionization of strong and weak acids. Bead models are used to study acid ionization on a particulate level. Students analyze seven strong and weak acid models and make generalizations about the relationship between acid strength and dissociation. (Contains 1 table and 2 figures.)

The universe of topics to choose from when teaching an astronomy course is astronomically immense. This wide array of opportunity presents some inherently difficult choices for teachers at all levels on how to limit the scope of the course to make the syllabus manageable. As but one example, consider that even the most experienced astronomy…

Arguments for the value of case study are vitiated by assumptions about the need for generalisation in the warrant of social scientific inquiry--and little generalisation is legitimate from case study, although an argument exists for the role of the case in the establishment of a form of generalisation in a certain kind of theory, a line of…

From its inception, the field of Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) has been conceived as an interdisciplinary science, and with good reason: The phenomena the field aims to understand often arise from interactions among multiple factors, span levels of analysis, and are context dependent. In this article, we argue that to reach its potential as an…

A characteristic of the modern mind is a disdain for tradition. Polanyi argues that neglecting the role of tradition leads to philosophical incoherence as well as moral and political chaos. Polanyi's postcritical philosophy represents an attempt to show how tradition plays a vital role in the process of discovery. Ultimately, a coherent account of…

This paper presents one method for educating for critical thinking in Higher Education. It elaborates Richard Paul's method of Socratic questioning to show how students can learn to be critical thinkers. This method combines and uses the wider pedagogical and critical thinking literature in a new way: it emphasises a thinking-encouraging approach…

Today, it is important to acknowledge our investment in the technologized visual culture world, but at the same time within that investment, allow for active participation in forms that press for engagement and reflection. Theorized through phenomenology, embodiment, and performative inquiry, Arts' Educational Relevance in a Technocratic World…

This research reports findings from a study on information behavior to indicate educationally relevant activity, such as information seeking and sharing, in technology pervasive information environments of the 21st century. Adult learners who are social media users (n = 147) completed an online learning preference survey battery that included the…

Using Bourdieu's forms of symbolic capital as the analytical framework, this article reports how a Taiwanese female university student, Huei, played out her linguistic, social and cultural capital in reading and responding to female-centred texts in a course entitled "Gender and Reading". Journal entries were used as key sources for data…