The author is a master packer. Last summer, anticipating the thousand-mile drive from southern California to Colorado, he packed their Sienna so that everything had its logical place, from the DVDs to the audio books, from the beef jerky to the bottled Starbucks mocha. Of course, at first he had to explain to everyone else where things were, since…

This study examines how students' experimentation with a virtual environment contributes to their understanding of a complex, realistic inquiry problem. We designed a week-long, technology-enhanced inquiry unit on car collisions. The unit uses new technologies to log students' experimentation choices. Physics students (n = 148) in six diverse high…

As a student teacher at Nottingham Trent University, the author explored the issues surrounding children asking investigable questions in science and the repertoire of strategies that could be employed by teachers in the classroom to support this process. His project was carried out in an inner-city primary school in Nottingham. The four focus…

We examined the effects of an educational psychology course on students' beliefs about motivating students. After providing opportunities to engage in systematic intentional inquiry of their beliefs about teaching and learning, we expected that students' beliefs would become more soundly based in theory and research. Following several classes on…

Among potential topics in the new science of biodiversity, understanding the characteristics and impact of invasive birds is an attractive subject to include as part of junior high school biology studies. Birds are aesthetic and raise curiosity. Curiosity about birds, combined with field observations, can stimulate students to ask authentic…

This paper recounts the investigative journey of a small group of faculty and graduate students at the University of British Columbia who extensively employed research-based theatre methods to collaboratively and performatively explore three distinct but related contexts that represent critical "moments" in the professional lives of…

This conceptual paper suggests ways in which pedagogical practices, curriculum, and mentorship could foster democracy in doctoral education. Building upon critical, dialogic, caring, anti-colonial, and engaged pedagogies, we propose a framework for examining marginal spaces of teacher and student relationships that build upon life-projects…

Explanations are considered to be key aids to understanding the study of mathematics, science, and other complex disciplines. This paper discusses the role of students' explanations in making sense of data and learning to reason informally about statistical inference. We closely follow students' explanations in which they utilize their experiences…

Argumentation is believed to be a significant component of scientific inquiry: introducing these skills into laboratory work may be regarded as a goal for developing practical work in school science. This study explored the impact on the quality of argumentation among 12- to 13-year-old students undertaking three different designs of…

Qualitative metasynthesis is an intentional and coherent approach to analyzing data across qualitative studies. It is a process that enables researchers to identify a specific research question and then search for, select, appraise, summarize, and combine qualitative evidence to address the research question. This process uses rigorous qualitative…

This article reflects on where and how empirical research, focusing particularly on college/adult writing and literate practice, has appeared over the last century in the complete runs of "English Journal," "College English," "College Composition and Communication," "Research in the Teaching of English," and "Teaching English in the Two-Year…

The Conference Board of Canada ranked us 14th out of the 17 major industrialized nations on measures of innovation, and our "productivity" track record has fared no better. Experts around the world agree that education is the key foundational building block for innovation skill development, and that the seeds of innovation--curiosity,…

The paper draws on the underpinnings of SERVQUAL (a Service Quality measurement model) and explores three key aspects of service standards as adopted by an Engineering School in Singapore: customer orientation, course design/delivery and support services. Qualitative methodology was employed and data were collected by means of structured in-depth…

This three-year collaborative self-study examined the impact of core reflection on our identities and practices as teacher educators. We discovered four themes that defined the core identity issues in our study: (a) understanding the contradictory nature of core qualities; (b) confronting our own hypocrisies; (c) holding ambiguity; and (d)…

This article describes the use of an enquiry-based approach to the study of human evolution in a practical context, integrating role-playing, jigsaw cooperative learning and scientific argumentation. The activity seeks to unravel the evolutionary relationships of five hominids and one ape from rather "messy" evidence. This approach enhanced the…