International Portal of Teacher Education
The online resource of academic content on teacher training and teacher education
Search results for: Inquiry
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84 items
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The purpose of this study was to examine the ways in which prospective teachers’ conceptions about teaching science as inquiry, and their efficacy for teaching science change across the Science Semester.
Entering the Science Semester, the participants related to science as coursework they needed to complete to meet program requirements.
The Science Semester was designed to provide inquiry-oriented and problem-based learning experiences, opportunities to examine socially relevant issues through cross-disciplinary perspectives. In contrast to the mixed views on their own learning, all of the participants eagerly embraced the idea that elementary science teaching should involve inquiry-based methods. The idealized image of activity-based experiences for children fulfills their goals for their future classrooms, and is congruent with their goals for a nurturing classroom environment. More
Published: 2014
Updated: Dec. 14, 2015
12
This study aimed to examine high school teachers’ beliefs about inquiry instruction and determine how their beliefs influenced their use of inquiry after a professional development program.
The authors used Windschitl’s (2002) Constructivist Dilemmas framework as a framework to understand the teachers’ enactments.
The authors found that the teachers were placed into four enactment categories: Integrated, Emerging, Laboratory-based, and Activity-focused. More
Published: 2013
Updated: Dec. 14, 2015
13
This paper explores the extent to which and ways in which philosophical ethics can make an educational contribution to teachers’ understanding of their practice as a distinct moral domain. Philosophical ethics is argued to facilitate two necessary features of teachers’ moral understanding of their practice. The article characterizes the educational value of these contributions as an on-going learning process of moral inquiry and practice that is best implemented through a form of liberal education. This characterization serves to distinguish it from approaches that would aim to initiate teachers into particular ethical frameworks, on the one hand, or a subjective or relativistic moral pluralism, on the other. More
Published: 2013
Updated: Nov. 03, 2015
14
In this article, the author presents the foundations of a research programme developing an understanding of teaching practice in secondary visual arts classrooms. The data reveal that core practices of visual arts teaching were evident, in relation to instructional methods, selection and use of resources, in the focus of programming and in approaches to relationships with colleagues and with students. The author has developed four propositions that provide the basis of a practice-based approach to teacher education. More
Published: 2013
Updated: May. 25, 2015
15
This article explores the ethical dimensions of what Cochran-Smith and Lytle have termed the dialectic of practitioner inquiry. The article argues that the reflexive nature of the theory/practice dynamic means that, in the context of sustained practitioner inquiry, the ethics of research and the ethics of practice both hold the potential to be shaped by and to shape the other. Elsewhere in discussions of the issue of quality in practitioner and other practice-based research, Groundwater-Smith and Mockler have argued that ethical professionalism can and does work as a platform for quality, pushing practitioner inquiry ‘beyond celebration’. More
Published: 2014
Updated: Nov. 24, 2014
16
The author investigates the role curriculum-dependent and curriculum-independent factors play in influencing preservice elementary teachers’ adaptation of science curriculum materials to foster inquiry-based science. The findings suggest that the initial inquiry-orientations of science curriculum materials do not significantly influence preservice elementary teachers’ adaptation of them. These findings suggest that while preservice elementary teachers are capable of adapting science lesson plans to make them more inquiry-based, an individual teacher may be more or less inclined to engage in adaptive processes based on other factors beyond how inquiry-based a science lesson plan is to begin with. Furthermore, the findings provide evidence that preservice elementary teachers are positively inclined toward the adaptation of science curriculum materials. More
Published: 2013
Updated: Oct. 05, 2014
17
This article examines how an inquiry-based social studies student teaching seminar helped three preservice teachers negotiate the pressures of standards-based reforms during student teaching. The author explores how initial perceptions of standardization and high-stakes testing corroded images of powerful teaching and created an ex post facto relationship with teaching social studies. More
Published: 2014
Updated: Sep. 22, 2014
18
In this article, the author has identified five essential ideas that could serve as underpinnings to support the preparation of early childhood educators: 1. Inquiry and reflection into practice are critical for continued teacher learning and development; 2. Learning and development are cultural and constructivist processes; 3. The teacher’s image of the child should be as a strong and capable participant in the culture; 4. The education of young children is a community privilege and responsibility; and 5. The purpose of early care and education is to enhance and support each child’s daily life experience and learning in the here and now, as well as preparing each child for future success. The author presents a conceptual framework for teacher education that incorporates these underlying ideas. She describes the way in which it is interpreted in the early childhood teacher preparation program at Mills College by a core set of principles. More
Published: 2013
Updated: Aug. 26, 2014
19
This article presents an extended perspective based on Charles Sanders Peirce’s concepts of abduction, deduction and induction. The author intends to show some of the integral relationships between these concepts which can be relevant for interpretative case studies exemplified by classroom research. More
Published: 2014
Updated: Aug. 24, 2014
20
The aim of this study was to investigate the views and actual practices related to inquiry and nature of science (NOS) of a group of highly motivated and well-qualified teachers from classrooms across the United States. The findings indicated that most of these teachers held fairly limited views and misconceptions on inquiry and NOS. Data analyses indicated an association between teachers’ views and classroom practice. That is, teachers with more robust views were more likely to teach science as inquiry, whereas teachers who held more limited views were less likely to teach science in this way. This study provides empirical evidence for the claim that although reform documents in the United States highlight the importance of inquiry and NOS and refer to inquiry as a central teaching strategy, some of the best teachers currently struggle to enact reformed-based teaching. More
Published: 2013
Updated: Aug. 05, 2014