Investigates the reasoning strategies of urban year-six students involved in creating their own questions and plans for scientific investigations. Focuses on how students generate ideas for their own investigations. Contains 24 references. (DDR)

Social studies educators have promoted inquiry learning as a valuable method of instruction. Research into the use of inquiry methods in the teaching and learning of history has demonstrated that this method has much to offer. Recently, the use of technological tools, including the Internet, has received attention as a means of transforming social…

These series of lessons uses the process of student inquiry to teach the concepts of force and motion identified in the National Science Education Standards for grades 5-8. The lesson plan also uses technology as a teaching tool through the use of interactive Web sites. The lessons are built on the 5-E format and feature imbedded assessments.

The problem addressed in the study was whether 10- and 11-year-old children, collaborating within a computer-supported classroom, could engage in progressive inquiry that exhibits an essential principal feature of mature scientific inquiry: namely, engagement in increasingly deep levels of explanation. Technical infrastructure for the study was…