This study examined students- views of collaboration and learning, and investigated how these predict students- online participation in a computer-supported learning environment. The participants were 521 secondary school students in Hong Kong, who took part in online collaborative inquiry conducted using Knowledge Forum[TM]. We developed a…

Using observations and interviews, the researchers explore the experiences and perspectives of students, teachers, and administrators at six specialized high schools with a focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) as they pertain to the practices and structures affecting student outcomes. Four themes were found to be…

This article describes the lessons learned during the implementation of a new master's degree program for K-8 teachers. The program's goal was to increase student inquiry and sense making in mathematics and science classrooms. Each of the twenty-four teacher participants reported strong satisfaction with the program, and a variety of measures…

As one of only six states receiving a federal Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy grant, Pennsylvania has designed and implemented an innovative program that focuses on improved instruction and interventions to ensure every student is literate and graduates from high school ready for college and a career. This report describes Pennsylvania's…

Competency education, an educator-led reform, is taking root in schools and districts across the country. In some states, state leadership has cleared the path with policies to advance competency education. This paper seeks to map out the terrain of the district implementation strategies being used to convert traditional systems into personalized,…

One of the challenges we face in higher education is knowing who we are as individuals and as communities. Poetic inquiry (Prendergast, Leggo, & Sameshima, 2009) is a way into that knowing, a way of exploring our own identities and our relationships with each other. Poetic inquiry creates a space for evocative knowing. This research project,…

This study attempted to close gaps in the literature with regards to implementation of inquiry practices in secondary science classrooms. In addition, the areas and ways in which practice ties to beliefs and experiences in the area of inquiry were examined. This study introduces an instrument that could be used to assess teachers' attitudes and…

The study examines kindergarten students' explanations during science learning. The data on children's explanations are drawn from videotaped and transcribed discourse collected from four public kindergarten science classrooms engaged in a life science inquiry unit on the life cycle of the monarch butterfly. The inquiry unit was implemented as…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how mastery-oriented inquiry-based education influences the help-seeking attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors of middle-school students after participating in a 5-week intervention program. Four eighth-grade science classes consisting of 123 students in one middle-school in the San Francisco Bay…

Lesson study, a form of school-based professional development widely practiced in Japan, has gained popularity in the United States over the last two decades. However, research on its effectiveness has been limited in scope, typically conducted shortly after the conclusion of the professional learning and focused primarily on the practices of…

The literature identifies methods that teachers can use to uncover student interests, and describes ways of responding that allow students to become involved in authentic science experiences. Missing from the literature are studies that examine teachers' thinking about student ideas, and the decision-making process they go through to weave student…

This book raises provocative questions about the efficacy, viability, and sustainability of professional learning communities given the current political and structural realities of public schools. The culmination of six years of research in five states, it explores real-world efforts to establish learning communities as a strategy for…

Students everywhere love chemistry demonstrations, especially if they involve explosions. But have you ever wanted to move beyond the "wow" factor and find a way to incorporate active student learning into your demos? What if you could get them to think more deeply about what they're observing, and then find out if they really understand what…

A class of 3- to 5-year-old children in a child care center in the midwestern United States chose to study a car wash as a group project. This article discusses how the project evolved, describes the three phases of the project, and provides the teachers' reflections on the project. Photos taken during the project and children's sketches are…

For scientists, the sandbox serves as an analog for faulting in Earth's crust. Here, the large, slow processes within the crust can be scaled to the size of a table, and time scales are directly observable. This makes it a useful tool for demonstrating the role of inquiry in science. For this reason, the sandbox is also helpful for learning…