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The purpose of this paper is to describe specific techniques of “inquiry‐based learning” employed by three instructors in Engineering schools, one in Europe and two in the USA.

Theorists such as Bransford et al. argue that twenty‐first century educators need to teach students to do more than simply remember and repeat information. Engineering educators Prince and Felder critique traditional methods of teaching in which instructors focus on mathematics and theory, but fail to convey practical applications of that knowledge. They advocate moving students to a higher level of learning – past the stage of memorizing and reciting data – to more sophisticated methods of analysis, synthesis, and application of knowledge. To enact such transformations, Prince and Felder recommend “inductive teaching methods,” including “inquiry‐based learning,” in which students learn through engaging with challenges and a series of questions. The paper provides examples of inquiry‐based learning activities from each of the authors. The paper then discusses the cross‐pollination of ideas and describes how the authors have shared inquiry‐based teaching strategies and collaborated to develop new and relevant assignments and approaches to teaching.

The willingness of learners to discuss a range of pedagogical topics, from specific practices to shared experiences and readings, led to an exchange of ideas, and also to deeper reflections on current practices. The cross‐pollination of assignments and techniques resulted in well‐structured, stimulating, and relevant research projects that engage engineering students from Texas to Portugal, and from communication to technical classes.

The use of inquiry‐based learning activities and the sharing of resources across continents aimed at improving learning and teaching requires expanding upon and further development.

The paper demonstrates the use of cross‐pollination of ideas, development of assignments and improved approaches to teaching.

Botanic gardens represent a significant educational resource often acting as major providers of a diverse range of formal and informal education programs for people of all ages and backgrounds. INQUIRE was a three-year project focusing on inquiry-based science education (IBSE) that involved 17 partners in 11 European countries that aimed to reinvigorate IBSE in the formal and Learning Outside the Classroom (LOtC) educational contexts in Europe. This chapter presents a case study of successful practices for embedding inquiry-based teaching and learning in botanic gardens. IBSE training courses were developed, piloted, and run. The study based on a qualitative evaluation strategy centers on the examination of the INQUIRE partners’ design, implementation and delivery of their IBSE teacher/educator training courses. The findings show that the courses had a positive impact on the participants who learned both theoretical and practical aspects of implementing IBSE in school and LOtC contexts (www.inquirebotany.org) and strong indications of good quality course provision across the project. A greater appreciation of botanic gardens as a learning resource was also noted. The project resulted in significant professional development outcomes and the key factors for success are discussed here. Consequently, this chapter presents evidence from IBSE in action in botany-related topics and provides a strong case for IBSE in botanic gardens.

This chapter provides an outline of how the essential elements of problem-based learning (PBL) can be adapted to enhance inquiry-based learning environments and in the process teach 21st century skills. It uses a case study of a first-year nursing course at a regional Australian university to show how essential PBL elements can be adapted in an ‘ePBL’ context, following five ePBL steps. Overall, it is argued that a carefully mapped outset of learning outcomes and PBL problems designed as inquiry-based activities provide a ‘liquid learning’ environment that will ultimately prepare confident graduates who will be able to take full advantage of the 21st century learning and professional contexts in which they find themselves.

Dealing with the issue of “Can practical wisdom be taught in business schools?,” in this chapter, I argue for an inquiry-based learning approach as a way of improving today’s management education. Following along these lines, I initially focus on the current criticism of today’s management education in business schools. Then, I provide an introduction into the recent interest in the topic of practical wisdom by management scholars that emerged as part of an effort to overcome these failures of business schools. These attempts, however, remain on a rather vague or theoretical level and are lacking helpful guidance on how universities might implement this concept into their educational offerings. In order to remedy these shortcomings, I introduce a competency-based three-pillar model of practical wisdom and combine it with an inquiry-based learning approach. A comprehensive scheme highlights how the particular competencies of practical wisdom can be fostered over the successive stages of the inquiry process. Most importantly, by describing a MA-thesis program as a successful example of these ideas in application, I provide concrete suggestions of how to facilitate the growth of practically wise competencies by means of an inquiry-based learning approach.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of scaffolded lesson study on the content knowledge, conceptions of curriculum, and classroom practice of 22 elementary and secondary history teachers in four school districts.

Teachers, teacher educators, and historians collaborated to design and test research lessons grounded in a theory-based framework for problem-based historical inquiry (PBHI) practice. The authors sought to support consonance between the reform ideas of the formal, professional development, curriculum, and the curriculum as enacted in participants’ classrooms.

Project participation was associated with significant gains in content knowledge and the conceptualization and implementation of more challenging instruction consistent with the PBHI model and the standards of authentic intellectual work (AIW). Mean AIW instruction scores for research lessons were more than double the scores for participants’ non-lesson study lessons and indicated noteworthy progress in integrating the formal and enacted curricula. Evidence suggested that many teachers developed more nuanced understandings of historical phenomena, gained greater appreciation for the importance of authentic purpose in motivating student engagement in challenging learning, and began to reconsider what is required to facilitate complex learning and to refine their repertoire of learning strategies.

Evidence from the first year of this project offers hope for the potential of collaborative communities of practice to facilitate a shared professional knowledge base of wise practice that brings the formal, intended, and enacted curriculum into greater alignment. These results also emphasize the evolutionary process of conceptual change.

This chapter provides guidelines and strategies for higher education faculty and faculty developers who wish to implement inquiry-based teaching models online. The chapter focuses on two specific inquiry-based (IB) instructional models: guided and open inquiry as these two models are considered more relevant to higher education students. The chapter will present validated processes for implementing IB teaching models and consider how these processes can be authentically replicated in online learning environments. The chapter will also examine issues and challenges involved in implementing IB teaching models online. Grounded in the challenges that faculty face in translating their instructional practice in online environments, the chapter suggests strategies and interactive tools to scaffold and model IB learning in online environments.

This chapter reports a six-year integrated information literacy instruction program in Taiwan that brought together concepts from informed learning, especially the six frames, with inquiry-based learning frameworks in schools. A total of eleven inquiry projects have been implemented from grades 1 through 6. Six projects selected for each grade are explained in detail. The themes of the projects are designed based on the essence of six frames, each project involving one to three frames depending on the integrated subjects. Through the descriptions, we present how the information literacy instruction is integrated into various subject matters via the framework of inquiry-based learning, such as the Super3 and Big6 models. Students’ performances in subject content and information literacy of the six projects are delineated quantitatively and qualitatively.

This chapter highlights the perspectives, examples, and applications on the current trend in teaching and learning counseling ethics education in a more effective way. The trend utilizes inquiry-based learning concept and educational activities to foster counselor education training programs fast-forward in meeting the social demands and global challenges. The discussion is based on the theme emerged from an interpretive case study research conducted by the authors, in addition to the insightful literature authored by the profound educators and counseling researchers, globally. Teaching and learning counseling ethics education is an integrative effort and is more than just content acquisition from textbooks. In addition, the inquiry-based teaching and learning approach can be a tool in finding solutions for authentic problems through in-depth investigations while learning counseling ethics education. This chapter hopefully will improve counselor educators’ ability, strengthen counselor education training programs’ capability, and expand counseling students ethical competency; for creating innovations and adaptations in teaching and learning counseling ethics education, utilizing inquiry-based learning toward enhanced professional ethical practice in counseling realm.

In recent years, the field of social studies education has seen renewed interest in using inquiry to teach intradisciplinary concepts and skills. However, prospective primary grade teachers may have few (if any) opportunities to observe classroom teachers modeling inquiry during field placements. Methods courses provide fitting contexts in which to introduce preservice teachers (PSTs) to inquiry as a basis for intellectually challenging, meaningful social studies instruction. The purpose of this paper is to utilize a published inquiry curriculum developed for the New York Social Studies Toolkit (NYSST) Project as a tool to explore PSTs’ thinking about teaching first grade economics.

This qualitative study utilized focus groups with two groups of early childhood PSTs enrolled in a social studies methods course (n=28). Secondary data sources included PSTs’ handwritten comments on hard copies of the inquiry curriculum and the researcher’s analytic memos.

In the process of critiquing curriculum during focus group interviews, PSTs concentrated on the proposed tasks, evaluated those tasks for their potential to affect children’s understanding, and suggested new activities that would promote more active student engagement. Participants recognized the significance of children’s prior knowledge and were sensitive to students’ family values, although they underestimated young children’s capacity for robust discussion and intellectually challenging content.

This study is unique in its use of a published NYSST Project inquiry to explore how PSTs make sense of new curriculum. Its attention to PST education for primary grades contributes to elementary social studies literature. Additionally, this study addresses a general concern in teacher education about the need for PSTs to develop skills in interpreting and adapting curriculum materials. Findings suggest that engaging PSTs in discussions about social studies curriculum can help teacher educators identify latent learning goals for their courses that may be overlooked or assumed unnecessary.