Instructional Models for Course-Based Research Experience (CRE) Teaching

A report on research that explicates three models of pedagogical practice that underpin and characterize inquiry instruction in a course-based research experience.

Qualitative Inquiry in the Making: A Minor Pedagogy

This article builds on Mazzei’s concept of minor inquiry to advance the concept of a minor pedagogy. We do so by folding poststructural theory into the evidence of experience, spotlighting a collective enunciation of the pedagogical event among individuated concepts, speakers, and moments. These pedagogical events are at once quotidian and more than one. In this spacetime individuation falls away, and the production of qualitative research expertise becomes a function of the entanglement of human and more-than-human pedagogues. At the level of the everyday, we recount our experiences in a doctoral program as professor and advisor (Lisa) and student and advisee (Laura). These experiences are selections from our (continuing) joint encounters with qualitative inquiry instruction. Enfolding these everyday pedagogical-theoretical practices of qualitative inquiry produces minor pedagogy, and minor pedagogy produces these folds. As such, minor pedagogy is a pedagogy of the ontological turn.

Science Teachers’ and Students’ Perceptions of the Implementation of Inquiry-Based Learning Instruction in a Middle School in Dubai

Inquiry-based learning (IBL) represents the student-centered approach that focuses on encouraging learners to scientifically construct new knowledge. The study aimed to explain science teachers’ and students’ perceptions about applying IBL in a private school in Dubai. Furthermore, to explore the degree to which the science textbook of Grade 8 promotes inquiry instruction. A mixed-method approach was applied where two questionnaires were conducted and an evaluation rubric was used to analyze the textbook to explore the extent to which it supports IBL. The findings revealed that teachers showed progress in applying inquiry instruction and students became more engaged in learning.

Flow, Achievement Level, and Inquiry-Based Learning

Beyond cognitive outcomes, inquiry instruction can have positive general and differentiated affective outcomes. In this exploratory study, teacher-nominated high- to low-average achievers in Grades 5 through 9 ( N = 272, mean age 11.7 years), in classrooms exhibiting rare, occasional, and frequent inquiry qualities, were assessed on Csikszentmihalyi’s construct of flow, following a recent unit and reflecting on their favorite subject. We focused on flow because it addresses education and life in general, and flow and inquiry invoke challenge and persistence. Interviews complemented these data. High-achieving participants reported most flow in inquiry and in their favorite subjects; in both situations, they could participate in determining the content. All students reported greater flow in inquiry-based activities and environments, and in their favorite subjects versus recent units. All preferred challenging over easy work although for different reasons. All highlighted feeling able to succeed and interest in an activity to experience flow.