Investigating the engagement and learning of students with learning disabilities in guided inquiry science teaching

Contemporary reform efforts pose numerous challenges for students and their teachers, especially in the context of inclusion classrooms that serve Stu dents with diverse academic and social profiles. The research reported in t his article was conducted for the purpose of closely studying the engagemen t and learning of students who hare teaming disabilities as they participat e in a particular approach to guided inquiry called Guided Inquiry supporti ng Multiple Literacies (GIsML). Questions guiding the research included (a) What are the opportunities and challenges that GIsML instruction presents students with special needs! (b) How do students with special needs respond to these opportunities and challenges! and (c) What hypotheses emerge from the data that will usefully guide subsequent research investigating the me ans of mediating these students' participation in GIsML for the purpose of enhancing their engagement and learning! The research was conducted using an array of ethnographic methods. The find ings were summarized in a set of claims concerning the engagement and learn ing of these students. Finally, cases of individual students were construct ed to illustrate these claims. The article concludes with the case of one f ourth-grade student as he-engaged in a program of study investigating why o bjects float and sink. the case: revealed (a) the ways in which, in the con text of guided inquiry, the student achieved a number of positive outcomes; (b) how his learning problems, principally with regard to print literacy, revealed themselves in his activity; and ttl how contextual features served to enhance and deter his engagement and learning, as well as the engagemen t:and learning of others.