Increasing attention is being paid to professional development as a way to improve outcomes for students but its promise has not always been realised. Broadly speaking, approaches to professional development have either focused on developing better prescriptions for teaching practice or on collaborative reflective inquiry into practice. Neither…

After decades of research endorsing inquiry-based learning, at best only moderate success has been noted in creating effective systemic implementation in K-12 classrooms. Thus, teachers need to be better equipped in how to bring this transformation to their own classrooms. Changing beliefs and overcoming external obstacles encourages the use of…

Valerie Kinloch describes how the literacy narratives around place-making by Phillip, an African American teenager who resides in this historic community, demonstrate complexities of confronting power, struggle, and identity within an out-of-school community that is rapidly becoming gentrified. (Contains 3 notes.)

As two teacher educators and researchers, we explored dimensions of instructional practice in teacher education through online forums. In the course of this research, we drew upon our online interactivity as the basis for reflexive inquiry. Analysis entailed coding key themes to create a four-part rendering involving a hyperlinked poem, a video, a…

Preservice elementary teachers face many challenges in learning how to teach science effectively, such as engaging students in science, organizing instruction, and developing a productive learning community. This paper reports on several iterative cycles of design-based research aimed at fostering preservice teachers' principled reasoning around…

In this article we present project work on physical measurements and an examination task with a Rijke tube. The aim of our project is to help students increase their knowledge of thermoacoustics while at the same time developing their applied information technology skills and improving their cooperation skills. Our school project promotes pedagogy…

Innovative strategies in inquiry-based learning are recognized as improving the quality of higher education learning, but there is a need to explore whether and how these strategies promote the development of professional identity among undergraduates. In this article we describe an inquiry-based course, situated in a European context, which is…

Purpose: This article reports on a study designed to uncover the factors aspiring secondary school principals consider important when deciding whether to apply for a specific post. The aspiring principals involved in the study had all confirmed their desire to be a principal; about half were already vice-principals. Methods: Evidence for the study…

This article reports on a narrative inquiry with two teacher-researchers of opposite ethnic, social class, and gender backgrounds about how their oppositions became an asset for their multicultural education. The study calls for educators to consider cultural creativity as a pertinent feature of multicultural education in today's polarized…

Working with 14 high school students and two teachers from the Bronx, New York, in 2006-2007, the author facilitated a year-long conversation about matters of deep concern to the students' lives and learning, both in and out of school. Their discussions resulted in a short book, which took the form of a standardized test they called "SAT…

Most people are familiar with the concept that animals come in all shapes and sizes and that the body plan of some animals can completely transform during their lifetime. Well-known examples of such complex life cycles of terrestrial animals include butterflies and frogs. Many people are unaware, however, that complex life cycles are exceedingly…

Scaffolds to plan, monitor, and evaluate learning within technology-enhanced inquiry and modeling environments are often little used by students. One reason may be that students frequently work collaboratively in these settings and their group work may interfere with the use of regulative supports. This research compared the use of regulative…

A number of studies have shown that spending time in nature produces cognitive benefits. What if a child's exposure to the out-of-doors is considered not just a beneficial extracurricular activity, but a fundamental building block to an elementary education in math and science? The Young Achievers Science and Math Pilot School operates a 9:30 a.m.…

Traditional lecture-based teaching methods are being replaced or supplemented by approaches which call for reframing the roles and identities of teachers and learners. Enquiry-Based Learning (EBL) is one such approach. This paper reports on a study investigating the perceptions of staff and students (N=25) involved in an EBL capacity building…

How do you inspire students to keep records like scientists? Share the primary research of real scientists and explicitly teach students how to keep records--that's how! Therefore, a group of third-grade students and their teacher studied the work of famous primatologist Jane Goodall and her modern-day counterpart Ian Gilby. After learning about…