Case studies of P-8 student inquiry in physical science

We finally finished it! Seeing the Science in Children's Thinking: Case Studies of Student Inquiry in Physical Science is a book and DVD available from Heinemann. It has six case studies at grades from 1 to 8, all of students talking about questions in physical science, five of these with video. Each case has detailed "facilitators' notes," for help in using these cases in pre-service courses or in-service professional development. The purpose is to help prospective and current elementary teachers learn to recognize and respond to the beginnings of science in children's knowlege and reasoning.

The project also produced a series of research papers, and more are under review or in preparation. Completed papers include:

Hammer, D., Russ, R., Mikeska, J., & Scherr, R. (in press). Identifying inquiry and conceptualizing students’ abilities. In R. Duschl & R. Grandy (Eds). Establishing a Consensus Agenda for K-12 Science Inquiry. Rotterdam, NL: Sense Publishers. Preprint.

Russ, R. S. (2006). A framework for recognizing mechanistic reasoning in student scientific inquiry. Unpublished Doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park.

Russ, R. S., & Hutchison, P. (2006). It's okay to be wrong: recognizing mechanistic reasoning during student inquiry. Bloomington, Indiana: International Society of the Learning Sciences.

May, D.B., Hammer, D., & Roy, P. (2006). Children's analogical reasoning in a 3rd-grade science discussion. Science Education 90 (2), 316-330. Link to journal

Rosenberg, S.A., Hammer, D., & Phelan (2006) Multiple epistemological coherences in an eighth-grade discussion of the rock cycle. Journal of the Learning Sciences 15(2), 261-292. Link to journal

van Zee, E. H., Hammer, D., Bell, M., Roy, P., & Peter, J. (2005). Learning and teaching science as inquiry: A case study of elementary school teachers’ investigations of light. Science Education 89(6), 1007-1042. Link to journal

Hammer, D., & Coffey, J. (2005). What NASA has to offer. In G. Walker, E. Wahl & L. Rivas (Eds.), NASA and Afterschool Programs: Connecting to the Future (pp. 76-83). Washington, DC: NASA. Essay

Hammer, D. (2004). The variability of student reasoning, lectures 1-3. In E. Redish & M. Vicentini (Eds.), Proceedings of the Enrico Fermi Summer School, Course CLVI. Bologna: Italian Physical Society.

Lecture 1: Case studies of children's inquiries, pp. 279-299. Preprint.
Lecture 2: Transitions, pp. 301-319. Preprint.
Lecture 3: Manifold cognitive resources, pp 321-340. Preprint.

Louca, L., Elby, A., Hammer, D., & Kagey, T. (2004). Epistemological resources: Applying a new epistemological framework to science instruction. Educational Psychologist, 39 (1), 57-68. Link to journal

Atkins, L. J. (2004). Analogies as Categorization Phenomena: Studies from Scientific Discourse. Unpublished Doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park.