Very, very interesting article, Debbie. Thanks for posting it! I enjoyed reading how the boys used iterative solution methods to attack and solve a problem. It would truly be wonderful if we could capture some of that spark for learning in our schools.
There is a new movement that is slowly spreading through science educations, at least at the university level. We began to here talks about "inquiry guided" learning 7-8 years ago. The basic premise is that students do not learn hard science as well from an old-style lecture format where the professor drones on at the blackboard for 50 minutes. The new style of teaching involves presenting the material to the students and then breaking the lecture into small group discussion for 10 or 15 minutes. As as teacher, you usually give them some problem or question, and the small group must decide among themselves the solution or answer. This makes the kids become a more active component of the learning process. I would say that this approach is much more challenging for the teacher, since you have to maintain control and focus over a large group of students (more so than in a typical english class). But so far the educational research is impressive. Kids who take pre-tests and post-test for this style of teaching fare far better when compared to the pre-test and post-test of kids in the standard lecture.
If you google: inquiry based learning for physics for example, you can find all kinds of examples of this new teaching method.
