ABSTRACT
Most inservice teachers have never experienced the practices of science and engineering research first hand or have had only limited exposure. The style of teaching with which they are most familiar is the typical transmission style lecture with occasional cookbook verification laboratory exercises, a common feature of large section undergraduate science and engineering courses. In addition, the often held perception that doing science is simply the “Scientific Method” as espoused in major textbooks results in an over simplification of the nature of research that it is a static, linear process (Windschitl, Thompson, & Braaten, 2008) and distracts teachers and students from “productive inquiry” (Tang, Coffey, Elby, & Levin, 2010).
