Designing Project-Based Science : Connecting Learners Through Guided Inquiry

This interpretive case study of an exceptional teacher provides a fascinating account of the difficulties and rewards of putting innovative teaching into practice. Joseph Polman uses richly detailed descriptions of classroom life to explore one teacher’s attempts to make technology-enhanced, open-ended inquiry a successful mode of teaching science in the secondary school classroom. The book provides lively examples of what it means to “learn by doing,” describing strategies that educators can use to move beyond traditional textbook approaches and interact with their students in ways that encourage them to become active science learners.

The book explores the complexity of changing practice, detailing the conflicts that emerge when a teacher challenges traditional approaches to teaching and learning, and provides a historical and theoretical background for understanding current controversies in educational practices. By analyzing teacher and student work within the context of the entire school, Polman demonstrates how the structural and cultural realities of the school itself complicate the enactment of pedagogical innovation in the classroom.

This sensitive and thorough examination of project-based learning will appeal to many educators seeking to improve their teaching practice. School change advocates, administrators, and policy makers interested in understanding the social, cultural, and material constraints that affect the implementation of reform will also find this account enlightening.

Joseph Polman is an assistant professor in Educational Technology at the University of Missouri, St. Louis.