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The authors of the three papers in this issue discuss and analyze the practice underlying "critical exploration," a research pedagogy applied in common within their separate art, science, and teacher education classrooms. Eleanor Duckworth developed critical exploration as a method of teaching by involving students so actively and reflectively with a subject that they have "wonderful ideas" that arise from their own questioning. Teachers who encourage critical exploration support their students in encountering complex materials, experiencing confusion, considering multiple possibilities, and constructing new understandings. Teachers refrain from providing answers, or even implying that there is an acceptable answer or technique, and instead facilitate the personal process of development that Jean Piaget, Bärbel Inhelder, and others documented and analyzed. Applying Piaget's findings requires teachers to sustain what David Hawkins described as "triangular relationships" of trust and respect among teacher, learners, and subject matter. The three classroom studies that follow narrate these exploratory qualities in the contexts of middle school girls learning Chinese brush painting, undergraduates investigating mirrors, and teacher education students exploring seeds, pendulums, and the moon. In teaching art and science via critical exploration, curiosity and a sense of beauty reinforce one another, and open a window into the processes of—and connections between—art and science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the author's experiences as she first learned about Eleanor Duckworth's pedagogy and research method and then later used the method for teaching and for research on how students learned traditional Chinese painting. The Critical Exploration Research method, as it is now called, encourages students to explore and tell and discourages teachers from readily telling and lecturing. It was found to be applicable even to the teaching and learning of Chinese paintings or any subject that emphasizes tradition, authority, and discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]