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Recent science reform documents call for students to develop robust understandings of scientific concepts and reasoning through inquiry-based instruction. The challenge of this goal is increased in heterogeneous inclusive classroom settings with students identified as having learning disabilities and emotional impairments. This article describes a design experiment conducted over two school years in which we investigated the experiences and outcomes for special needs students in guided inquiry science instruction in upper-elementary grade classrooms (n = 4). Phase 1 ('97-'98) of the design experiment utilized qualitative and quantitative data to construct case studies of individual learners with special needs. Patterns across the cases informed the identification of advanced instructional strategies hypothesized to support special needs students relative to language/cognition, print literacy, attention, and social relations challenges. In Phase 2 ('98-'99), we studied learning outcomes from instruction including the advanced strategies (same teachers, topics as Phase 1). Our findings indicate that in Phase 2 (with the advanced strategies) all students demonstrated significant learning gains over Phase 1 and that special needs and low-achieving students in three of four classes showed changes in understanding comparable to those of normally achieving students. We conclude by identifying implications of these findings for the roles of general and special educators. ANNEMARIE S. PALINCSAR, Ph.D., is Jean and Charles Walgreen professor in Reading and Literacy, University of Michigan. SHIRLEY J. MAGNUSSON, Ph.D., is senior research associate, University of Michigan. KATHLEEN M. COLLINS, Ph.D., is assistant professor, University of San Diego. JANE CUTTER is a doctoral student, University of Michigan. THE CHALLENGE OF INQUIRY-BASED scientific reasoning through inquiry-based instruction SCIENCE INSTRUCTION (National Research Council, 1996). While many aspects Recent science reform documents call for students to of inquiry-based instruction speak to its appeal, it is a develop deep understandings of scientific concepts and very complex form of instruction, placing many Volume 24, Winter 2001 15 Sage Publications, Inc.

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Contemporary reform efforts pose numerous challenges for students and their teachers, especially in the context of inclusion classrooms that serve students with diverse academic and social profiles. The research reported in this article was conducted for the purpose of closely studying the engagement and learning of students who have learning disabilities as they participate in a particular approach to guided inquiry called Guided Inquiry supporting 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 means 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 findings were summarized in a set of claims concerning the engagement and learning of these students. Finally, cases of individual students were constructed to illustrate these claims. The article concludes with the case of one fourth-grade student as he engaged in a program of study investigating why objects float and sink. The case revealed (a) the ways in which, in the context 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

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