What do paleontologists, dinosaur tracks, and the nature of science have in common? They're combined here in an inquiry activity where students use methods of observation and inference to devise evidence-based explanations for the data they collect about dinosaur tracks, much like the methods used by paleontologists. Students then debate the…

For some children maths and science are exciting subjects that work side by side, one providing the opportunity to practise and hone skills and knowledge gained from the other. For other children the subjects are disjointed and seem to bear no relationship to each other. Science can provide a wonderful opportunity to practise a variety of math…

To develop children's understanding and ability to enquire, teachers need to create the conditions that promote thinking and the expression of ideas. Opportunities to wonder aloud, speculate, and form hypotheses are essential. These can be offered through the use of visual stimuli--objects and demonstrations, pictures and dramatic scenarios,…

A decade of research utilizing the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework has unveiled the priority of teaching presence in effective models of online education. The data for this finding are significant, as is the momentum of the CoI in suggesting theoretical and practical implications for implementing contemporary online education. However,…

This study focused on curriculum used in a community college orientation program classroom where most of the students were Hispanic. Curriculum for the purpose of student orientation has become an essential tool for increasing student retention rates at institutions of higher education (Hendel, 2007; National Research Council Publications, 2009).…

This study continues the exploration of the Community of Inquiry framework and how collaborative technologies, specifically wikis, can be used to impact student perception of social presence. The subjects were 78 graduate education students in three differently contrived sections of the same online course. Participants completed the Community of…

Some students are not mastering the scientific inquiry skills needed to be ready for postsecondary studies. For students to master these skills, science teachers must implement instructional practices that facilitate scientific inquiry. The purpose of this correlation study was to investigate the relationship between professional development and…

This dissertation used a combination of case study and phenomenological research methods to investigate how individual teachers of middle school science in the Alabama Math, Science, and Technology Initiative (AMSTI) program sustain their use of inquiry-based methods of teaching and learning. While the overall context for the cases was the AMSTI…

This qualitative, action-research study used themes from appreciative interviews of Texas elementary teachers to recommend a framework for a school-wide assessment model for a Texas elementary school. The specific problem was that the Texas accountability system used a yearly measurement that failed to track progress over time and failed to…

This study explored the experiences of mathematics teachers as they examined recommendations for "Reasoning and Sense Making" (NCTM, 2009) and investigated them in their practice through action research. Narrative inquiry was used to capture the ways that teachers conceptualized the curricular recommendations, the actions teachers took…

The foreign faculty in Kazakhstan faced the challenge of designing a total authentic learning curricula for undergraduate students used to a traditional approach to learning. Students were asked to submit reflective learning journeys at the end of the spring 2011 semester. This study uses their stories as a springboard to explore their perspective…

How prospective teachers can best be prepared to teach effectively in mathematics classrooms is a topic of current concern. In this paper, we describe our exploration of ways in which prospective teachers were supported to translate what they learnt in mathematics methods classes into pedagogical practice. We illustrate how the use of discourse…

Food science laboratory courses are traditionally taught as a series of preplanned laboratories with known endpoints. In contrast, inquiry-guided (IG) laboratories allow students to ask questions, think through problems, design experiments, then adapt and learn in response to unexpected results. This study examined the effects of converting the…

In the current laboratory assignment, technical aspects of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) are integrated in the context of six different bacterial outbreak scenarios. The "Enterobacterial Repetitive Intergenic Consensus Sequence" (ERIC) PCR was used to analyze different outbreak scenarios. First, groups of 2-4 students determined optimal…

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)--now in development--will be based on "A Framework for K-12 Science Education" released by the National Research Council last summer. The "Framework" identifies seven scientific and engineering practices that should be used in science classrooms. These practices reflect the multiple ways in which…