Physical separation techniques in water purification: an inquiry-based laboratory learning experience

This article outlines a structured investigative activity for students in lower secondary school. It was developed for the Australian Mathematics and Science Partnership Programme, a government initiative intended to promote the employment of more hands-on investigations in secondary science within Australian schools. The investigation focuses on water purification and is intended to develop conceptual knowledge of this topic and also high-level skills such as experimental design, particularly in relation to identifying and controlling variables. The investigation is outlined in detail and was trialed with practicing science teachers, school students and preservice secondary teachers. All of these groups provided feedback in various forms that indicated the investigation was valuable, relevant, interesting and allowed students to take some responsibility for their own inquiry learning.

Secondary Math Teacher Candidates´ Perspectives on a Co-Taught Blended Content & Methods Geometry Course

Two faculty, from the mathematics and education departments in an urban university, co-teach a blended methods and content geometry course for preservice secondary teachers who are also math majors. The course is entirely inquiry-based, a departure from traditional instructor-centered maths courses, and utilizes design-based trajectories developed by one of the authors over 12 years. We conducted two individual clinical interviews and one focus-group interview with 6 volunteer students, to ascertain their perspectives on how they best learn mathematics; to gauge how they perceived the inquiry-based experiences from this course; and, their reflections on inquiry-based instruction in mathematics as they move forward in their goals to become teachers. We used narrative inquiry as a research method to study the experiences of these students individually and collectively.

What Makes Inquiry Stick? The Quality of Preservice Teachers’ Understanding of Inquiry

This nonexperimental, exploratory, mixed-design study used questionnaires with 167 preservice secondary teachers to identify prior educational experiences associated with student-teachers’ inquiry understanding. Understanding was determined through content analysis then open coding of definitions of inquiry and descriptions of best-experienced inquiry instruction, in terms of 23 potential learner-inquiry outcomes. Only two of seven educational-context variables related to understanding: prior experience doing a thesis or research—especially to definition quality and having taken a research-methods course—especially to description quality. How definitions and descriptions of inquiry are different and similar was analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. Implications for methodology, theory, and practice were presented, for example, research opportunities and research-methods training during teacher education.