The main aim of this article is to describe central elements of, and the relationships among, three interrelated domains of inquiry. The first domain is Charles Peirce's semiotic theory which offers five concepts of special relevance to the other two domains: (a) primary components of the triadic sign, including the object, representamen, and…

As every parent knows, children are no slouches at generating questions. But the scientific potential in a child's spontaneous question can easily be lost; children often fail to take the step beyond casual curiosity into systematic inquiry. Questioning is indeed robustly rooted in children's everyday ways of thinking about the world, but serious…

The core idea of action research is that there should be an intimate relationship between inquiry and practical or political activities. A challenge to this idea based on an influential ancient Greek hierarchy between theoria and praxis is examined. The contrary, pragmatist, notion that all inquiry arises out of human activity is accepted, but not…

Learning through discovery and inquiry is one of the cornerstones of mathematics education theory. The examples provide scope for the students to rediscover mathematics in an enjoyable way.

Longitudinal inquiry has long been recognized as a uniquely powerful method for seeking understanding of psychological development. A 30-year longitudinal venture is described--its theoretical motivation, methodological rationale, and details of implementation. Some of the novel and implicative findings the study has generated are briefly…

Metaphors are used as a typical way to negotiate and to describe people's everyday experience. In the classroom, teachers commonly employ metaphors to engage students and to make abstract ideas appear more concrete. In particular, metaphors provide an effective means to help visualize abstract ideas. The study reported in this article describes…

The author, an elementary school teacher, describes a way of incorporating an inquiry approach to teaching by refining a crayfish unit originally found in an ESS (Elementary Science Study) module. She used a "coupled-inquiry" approach, a combination of guided-inquiry and open-inquiry, with an application used for assessment purposes. In five or…

Inquiry refers to the activities of students in which they develop knowledge and understanding of scientific ideas, as well as an understanding of how scientists study the natural world. Inquiry is a multifaceted activity that involves making observations; posing questions; examining books and other sources of information to see what is already…

MOS, or Minds-On-Science, is the foundation of conducting educationally valuable science demonstrations. It is a teaching strategy equally effective as hands-on-learning. Plus, it proves much more effective at reinforcing abstract science concepts than traditional lectures, readings, and audiovisual presentations. Adding MOS to a demonstration…

Many gay, lesbian, and bisexual adults report a period of childhood sexual questioning--an uneasy questioning of their heterosexuality brought on by same-sex attractions and motivating same-sex sexual exploration. This article evaluates hypotheses about the correlates, causes, and consequences of childhood sexual questioning. Participants were 182…

The early childhood profession needs to establish a different discourse to describe what has been referred to as "play" in early childhood. The authors draw from literature on inquiry theory to provide a theoretical lens for discussion and offer a model for inquiry through the Project Approach for the early childhood setting. The authors posit…

Research on asynchronous learning networks (ALNs) has indicated that there are problems with both the quantity and quality of online interactions that can undermine the aim of inquiry. The goal of this paper is to offer a new way of thinking about these problems in the context of knowledge building, a specific form of collaborative inquiry…

In this keynote address presented at the October, 2005 Annual Conference, the author considers the role of dissent in the academy from the perspective of the turbulent late sixties and early seventies. He examines the role of dissent as a foundational principle in the modern era of the American university. He states that dissent was neither…

In this paper, I describe a professional development approach and a conceptual framework used to create critically thoughtful and media-rich science learning resources. Greater clarity about the nature of critical thinking and how to support teachers in learning to implement it are needed if we are to respond to broader calls for critical thinking…

It is known for a fact that textbooks are widely used in today's classrooms. Admittedly, textbooks may have some advantages in the sense that they provide the framework for any educational course. However, exclusively depending on them may restrict both teacher and student autonomy. Textbooks have been criticized for promoting rote instead of…