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The study describes the teaching of scientific investigations by Life and Natural Sciences educators in the Bushbuckridge Region in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. A quantitative survey method was exploited using a Cluster sampling method. The study was conducted a year after the introduction of the National Curriculum Statement in Grade 10, in South African schools. The study found that most educators use teacher-centred teaching methodologies rather than open inquiry in teaching scientific investigations. Schools still have a shortage of infrastructure, teaching resources and references, which make it difficult for the educators to shift towards the expected new system of teaching. Teachers are confronted with language barriers, heavy workload and insufficient retraining in the new curriculum. / Science and Technology Education / M.Ed.

The study describes the teaching of scientific investigations by Life and Natural Sciences educators in the Bushbuckridge Region in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. A quantitative survey method was exploited using a Cluster sampling method. The study was conducted a year after the introduction of the National Curriculum Statement in Grade 10, in South African schools. The study found that most educators use teacher-centred teaching methodologies rather than open inquiry in teaching scientific investigations. Schools still have a shortage of infrastructure, teaching resources and references, which make it difficult for the educators to shift towards the expected new system of teaching. Teachers are confronted with language barriers, heavy workload and insufficient retraining in the new curriculum. / Science and Technology Education / M.Ed.

This musical, arts-based educational research describes the lived experiences of four K-12 New Orleans educators who believe that end-of-year standardized tests hinder their ability to teach in ways they believe are best. Using songwriting as a form of data elicitation and narrative restorying, this study documents the lived experiences of teachers who have experienced test-related cognitive dissonance. While curricular narrowing and other test-related practices have been studied in many contexts, the perspectives of New Orleans teachers are barely documented. Thus, this study fills a content gap in the testing literature. Musically restorying the data contributes to the accountability literature in three main ways. First, restorying the data as song renders the findings evocatively — that is, in ways that capture the emotion with which the data was originally imbued. Second, because this study is performative (the results were sung live in the community), the opportunity exists to ignite a local conversation aimed at helping teachers navigate testing/teaching conundrums. Finally, as music is one of the least utilized forms of art-based research, this study fills a methodological gap in the arts-based research repository.

The ability to interpret and apply experiences, or cases (Kolodner, 1993; 1997) is a skill (Anderson, et. al, 1981; Anderson, 2000) that is key to successful learning that can be transferred (Bransford, Brown and Cocking, 1999) to new learning situations. For middle-schoolers in a project-based inquiry science classroom, interpreting and applying the experiences of experts to inform their design solutions is not always easy (Owensby and Kolodner, 2002). Interpreting and applying an expert case and then assessing the solution that results from that application are the components of a process I call case use. This work seeks to answer three questions: 1. How do small-group case use capabilities develop over time? 2. How well are students able to apply case use skills in new situations over time? 3. What difficulties do learners have as they learn case use skills and as they apply case use skills in new situations? What do these difficulties suggest about how software might further support cognitive skill development using a cognitive apprenticeship (Collins, Brown and Newman, 1989) framework? I argue that if learners in project based inquiry classrooms are able to understand, engage in, and carry out the processes involved in interpreting and applying expert cases effectively, then they will be able to do several things. They will learn those process and be able to read an expert case for understanding, glean the lessons they can learn from it, and apply those lessons to their question or challenge. Furthermore, I argue that they may also be able to transfer interpretation, application, and assessment skills to other learning situations where application of cases is appropriate.

PlantingScience (PS) is a unique web-based learning system designed to develop secondary students' scientific practices and proficiencies as they engage in hands-on classroom investigations while being mentored online by a scientist. Some students' teachers had the opportunity to attend PS professional development (PD). In this dissertation, I developed a process of assessing student learning outcomes associated with their use of this system and evaluated inquiry engagement within this system. First, I developed a valid and reliable instrument (Online Elements of Inquiry Checklist; OEIC) to measure participants' (students, scientists, and teachers) engagement in scientific practices and proficiencies embedded within an inquiry cycle I collaborated with an expert-group to establish the OEIC's construct and content validities. An inter-rater reliability coefficient of 0.92 was established by scientists and a split half analysis was used to determine the instruments' internal consistency (Spearman-Brown coefficient of 0.96). Next, I used the OEIC to evaluate inquiry cycle engagement by the participants who used the PS online platform designed by the Botanical Society of America which facilitated communication between participants. Students provided more evidence of engagement in the earlier phases of an inquiry cycle. Scientists showed a similar trend but emphasized experimental design and procedures. Teachers rarely engaged online. Exemplary students' outcomes followed similar inquiry cycle trends, but with more evidence of engagement with one notable difference. Exemplary students provided evidence for extensive engagement in immersion activities, implicating immersion as a crucial component of successful inquiry cycle engagement. I also compared engagement outcomes of students whose teachers attended the PD experience to the students of teachers who did not attend PD. Differences found between the two groups occurred throughout the inquiry cycle, typically associated with experiences provided during the PD. As a result of this research I have several recommendations about revisions to the PS online platform and use of approaches to assure students development of scientific practices and proficiencies. The recommendations include additional scaffolding of the platform, explicit inquiry cycle instruction, and continued opportunities for teachers to engage in PD experiences provided by PS.

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This thesis is a study of inquiry. Drawing upon the work of American pragmatist John Dewey, this work seeks to contribute to our understanding of the construction of knowledge within the social system of communities of inquiry. The process of inquiry that is traced in this work is one effected in the course of architectural designing. An ethnographically informed study of an architectural masterplan project is used to illustrate Dewey's ideas and how they are played out in design practice. This thesis is understood to correspond with the growing interest of the students of organisational learning and knowledge management in knowledge creation and the underlying social processes. It is further seen as a response to the claim that the key processes of knowledge creation remain largely an enigma. Agreement has been established with Dewey that knowledge is not just an end in itself but a form of action, a medium of change and social transformation. The formation of knowledge, however, within the operation of inquiry is not a matter that “naturally” runs its course. The process of inquiry as studied both in theory and practice has shown just how much its results, which by definition constitute knowledge, are shaped by the institution and control of a problem. A problem is a social construct and the product of the purposeful selection and arrangement of pieces of information. Inquiry is therefore considered a process of controlled knowledge formation. That which counts as knowledge in the realm of social phenomena has been shown to be a matter not so much of agreement between actions and their consequences but agreement in terms of intellectual acceptance. What “satisfies” as a solution (such as the final masterplan) has therefore been shown to be not necessarily a question of its logical status.

PRIMARY PUPILSʼ HISTORICAL THINKING Abstract This thesis deals with development of childrenʼs historical thinking in primary school. At the beginning of the theses, changes in the Czech history curriculum are presented. Moreover, it discusses psychological relations of historical thinking and introduces important Czech and foreign works presenting researches in this field of study. The thesis depicts the course of the qualitative research focusing on the level of historical thinking skills of the fifth graders, especially their historical understanding. The research also contains four lesson plans including special tasks for children. At the end of the thesis, the influence of these tasks on childrenʼs historical thinking is examined and described. The suggested methods should be not only an inspiration source for teachers, but also a possible way of development of historical thinking of primary school pupils. Key words: historical thinking, historical inquiry, evidence and artefacts, child as a historian, historical inquiry question, history at school Vedoucí diplomové práce: Ing. Michaela Dvořáková Autor diplomové práce: Karolína Kopecká Studijní obor: učitelství pro 1. stupeň ZŠ Forma studia: prezenční Diplomová práce dokončena: červen, 2012

O presente trabalho foi realizado com a premissa de que, desde os primeiros anos de escolarização, os alunos precisam ser envolvidos em processos de investigação científica. Com a inserção de crianças de 6 anos no Ensino Fundamental (EF), surgiu uma série de indagações relacionadas ao Ensino de Ciências (EC), dentre as quais emerge a questão central desta pesquisa: É possível verificar o engajamento das crianças de 6 anos em processos de investigação científica?. Com enfoque essencialmente qualitativo e perspectiva de estudo de caso, estruturou-se uma Sequência de Ensino Investigativa (SEI) para os alunos dessa faixa etária, pertencentes a uma escola de Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo. As atividades que compõem a SEI foram divididas em três momentos: pré-investigação, investigação e pós-investigação. Com foco no processo de aprendizagem e significação de conceitos, a sequência teve o intuito de verificar algumas habilidades associadas ao fazer científico. Para tanto, foram analisadas as discussões orais, a partir da gravação de aulas e transcrição das falas, bem como as representações gráficas dos alunos, compondo, portanto, três fontes de dados: vídeos, falas e desenhos. Esses dados foram examinados com base em categorias relacionadas ao processo de investigação científica e ao conhecimento do ser vivo estudado. Por meio da observação de um ciclo de vida completo, os alunos vivenciaram oportunidades reais para levantar hipóteses, testar suas ideias, manusear materiais, coletar dados, manipular tabelas e gráficos, registrar informações, assim como articular, avaliar e revisar seus modelos de crescimento e desenvolvimento dos seres vivos. Os desenhos produzidos pelos alunos foram capazes de comunicar as atividades realizadas, tanto no que diz respeito ao ser vivo estudado como em relação aos materiais utilizados no processo de investigação. As habilidades empregadas pelos alunos, em suas comunicações orais ou representações gráficas, são ferramentas necessárias para o envolvimento com a cultura científica. Assim, acredita-se que as discussões científicas, no contexto da sala de aula, possuem implicação direta com o EC e devem ser fomentadas desde os primeiros anos do EF, visando à construção de novos conceitos e ferramentas científicas e ao envolvimento crescente dos alunos em processos de Alfabetização Científica (AC). / The present paper was developed with the premise that, since the early years in school, the students need to be involved in scientific inquiry-based processes. With the insertion of 6-year-old children in the Elementary School, a series of inquiries related to Science teaching came up, among which emerges the central question in this research: \"Is it possible to check the engagement of 6-year-old children in scientific inquiry-based processes?\". With essentially qualitative focus and case study perspective, an Inquiry-Based Teaching Sequence (IBTS) was structured to the students this age who belong to a school in Ribeirão Preto, in São Paulo state. The activities that make up the IBTS were divided in three moments: preinquiry, inquiry and postinquiry. Focusing in the learning process and in the meaning of concepts, the sequence had the intention to check some skills associated with the scientific doing. For this, oral discussions were analysed, starting with the recordings of the classes and the speech\'s transcription, as well as the students\' graphic representations which then made up three data sources: videos, speech and drawings. These data were examined based on categories related to the scientific inquiry-based process and the knowledge of the studied living being. Through the watching of a complete life cycle, the students experienced real opportunities to make hypothesis, test their ideas, handle materials, collect data, handle charts and graphics, and register information, as well as articulate, evaluate and review their growth models and living beings development. The drawings made by the students could communicate the performed activities, concerning both to the studied living being and to the materials used in the inquiry-based process. The skills used by the students in their oral communications or graphic representations are necessary tools to the engagement with the scientific culture. Therefore, it is believed that the scientific discussions, in the classroom context, have direct implication with the ST and must be encouraged since the early years in Science teaching, leading to the building of new concepts and scientific tools and also the growing engagement of the students in Scientific Literacy processes.