Inquiry skills are universally recognised as being integral to a contemporary science education where students need to understand the nature of scientific practices as well as concepts. Although inquiry learning is a common practice among primary educators, the development and assessment of inquiry skills is far less practised. There is a need for…

In this article I inquire into choreographic-pedagogic stop-moments, identified through bodily felt intensities and affects, in the Bird project. The Bird project was a collaborative dance project that took place in an elementary school in Norway in 2020, where, as a choreographer-researcher-teacher, I cooperated with the teachers and pupils in…

The importance of introducing students to mechanistic reasoning (MR) early in their schooling is emphasised in research. The goal of this case study was to contribute with knowledge on how early primary students' (9-10 year-olds) MR in chemistry is expressed and developed in a classroom practice framed by model-based inquiry. The study focuses on…

Inquiry is the essence of social studies, and inquiry "looping" in social studies curricula means offering students opportunities to engage in inquiry in regular intervals and in a coherent fashion within and across grade levels. This can benefit the youngest students since they are filled with hope and want to make a difference in the…

The aim of this research was to create spaces for kindergarten writers by collaborating with kindergarten teachers through action research cycles. The inquiry's problem of practice is situated in the understanding that writing instruction within kindergarten classrooms is being sidelined due to a drive to teach in ways aligned to a sub-skills…

Students learned to perform first-person presentation to display information researched through an inquiry process. Teachers helped students learn inquiry during instructional time. Teachers, parents, and guardians worked together to support student learning in a high poverty and low educational attainment Appalachian community. The character the…

Elasticity, the capacity for students to explore or investigate their own questions of interest during or after teacher-directed events in the classroom, is highly beneficial for students in terms of their retention and deeper understanding of the content. An elastic environment is child-centered and inquiry-based. An inelastic environment…

This article explores the usefulness of detective role-play as a research method to facilitate young children's critical thinking. The study examines four specifically designed detective play experiences, adopting an ethical rights-based approach to research with children. This qualitative multiple-case study is grounded in play-based pedagogy…

The release of NGSS in 2013 brought forth uncertainty among K-12 educators on how to translate these standards into practical science lessons (Harris et al., 2017). One important instructional change that teachers still need assistance with is supporting sensemaking. To guide students in the process of sensemaking, teachers must ask questions that…

This study aims to examine the effect of the P4C curriculum on 5-6-year-old children's critical thinking through philosophical inquiry and their problem-solving skills. The study group included a total of 40 children learning in kindergartens at an elementary school in Çanakkale, Turkey. The study used a quasi-experimental model with the…

When exploring and introducing sound, students need to understand that there are multiple aspects that work together to create sound. In this single class lesson, students work through an inquiry-based challenge to discover how sound can be manipulated and altered through these elements. By investigating how to manipulate sound, students are able…

Although online course design is no longer new, few design cases describe the development of entire courses based on principles of student-centered learning design. This design case chronicles the context, design challenges, and successes and failures of a graduate course on Technology & Inquiry-based Instructional Methods for an online…

Although the "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS) have three dimensions, the crosscutting concepts are often the forgotten dimension. One reason teachers may not emphasize the crosscutting concepts might be because they are broad, domain-general constructs that can be difficult to conceptualize in a meaningful way. Yet, when taught…

Research into pedagogical approaches used in early years' nature education, more specifically European and UK forest schools, remains according to Leather, 'undertheorised.' In a similar situation in Australia, the bush kindergarten programmes (referred to as 'bush kinders'), have had limited research attention. Influenced by European and UK…

This study aimed to analyze articles published in the Web of Science database from 2012 to 2021 to examine the educational goals and instructional designs for STEM education. We selected articles based on the following criteria: (a) empirical research; (b) incorporating instructional design and strategies into STEM teaching; (c) including…