Science Teaching

The research literature is just beginning to uncover factors involved in sustaining constructivist learning environments, such as Project-Based Learning (PBL). Our case study investigates teacher responses to the challenges of constructivist environments, since teachers can play strong roles in supporting or undermining even the best constructivist environments or materials. We were invited to work as mediators with a middle-school science staff that was experiencing conflicts regarding two learning environments, PBL (which was the school's "politically correct" learning environment) and traditional. With mediated group workshops, teachers were sensitized to their own and colleagues' individual learning differences (ILDs), as measured by two styles inventories (the LSI-Kolb, 1976; and the LCI-Johnston & Dainton, 1997). Using these inventories, a learning-environment questionnaire, field notes, and delayed interviews a year later, we found that there was a relationship between teachers' preferred styles, epistemological beliefs, and their preferred teaching environment. Moreover, when the participating teachers, including early-adopters and nonvolunteers to PBL, became more sensitive to their colleagues' preferences, many staff conflicts were resolved and some mismatched teachers expressed more openness to PBL. We argue that having teachers understand their own ILDs and related responses to constructivist learning environments can contribute to resolving staff conflicts and sustaining such environments. We present a cognitive model and a strategy which illustrate this argument.

Children learn in formal (school) and informal (out-of-school) contexts. Do these children integrate what they learn in these different contexts? While some research shows that they do most of the literature points to a serious lack of contact between these contexts when dealing with related content. During the last two decades, many education researchers have called to bridge this gap.

The aim of this paper is to develop a model to guide dialogue and cooperation between staff members within formal and informal educational contexts, in order to foster this integration. We present: (1) a rationale for bridging between formal and informal learning contexts, including the need for a comprehensive and
practical model to guide this effort; (2) a design-based research methodology for developing the model; and (3) the resulting 4
4-bridging model.

We argue that this model can help educators, engaged in formal and informal learning, to develop practical and productive partnerships with each other.

On completing middle-school (ninth grade), Israeli students must choose which discipline(s) to major in upon entering high school. This study, grounded in Expectancy-Value Theory (EVT), identified and modeled the factors that contributed to students' academic choices from their own subjective perspectives. We collected qualitative and quantitative data from ninth graders in two urban middle-schools (n=295) at the school year's end. We found that (a) most students cited interest and utility value as their main motivations for choosing a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) major, expectancies were mentioned less; (b) students who chose a STEM major had statistically significant higher scores for EVT's key predictor variables (personal attributes, "subjective task value," "expectation of success," perceived effects of environmental factors) than their counterparts who majored in non-STEM disciplines; (c) the positive perceptions of their peers' interest and ability in science contributed significantly to students' choice to major in STEM disciplines; and (d) no significant gender differences re academic choice were found. One highly unexpected finding emerged:

ED466373 - Project-Based Learning (PBL) in Science and Technology: A Case Study of Professional Development. ... Project-Based Learning (PBL) in Science and Technology: A Case Study of Professional Development. ... In: Science and Technology Education: Preparing Future ...

Modeling is a core scientific practice. Over the past three years, the MoDeLS project (Modeling Designs for Learning Science) has developed a learning progression for this practice, focusing on the late elementary and early middle school years. This study probed the modeling knowledge of high school students who had not any explicit exposure to modeling. The goal was to see if the upper levels of the learning progression are attainable during K-12 and to evaluate the degree to which modeling knowledge is dependent on content knowledge. Nine Israeli high school students studying AP physics, chemistry, biology, or learning general science, were interviewed about models twice, once in a context related to their science major and once in a non-related context. The interviews were coded using construct maps developed by the MoDeLS project. All the students displayed modeling knowledge superior to that of elementary and middle school students, despite the lack of formal instruction on the practice. Their modeling knowledge was independent of content area, but their ability to engage in the practice was content-dependent. This indicates that while the upper levels of the modeling learning progression can be reasonable goals for K-12 education, students appear to attain these levels of understanding without explicit instruction on modeling. The value of explicitly focusing on modeling knowledge in science education is reconsidered .

2006. In Novotná, J., Moraová, H., Krátká, M. & Stehlíková, N.(Eds.). Proceedings 30th Conference of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, Vol. 4, pp. 145-152. Prague: PME. 4-145 VISUAL COGNITION: CONTENT KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEFS OF ...

The main objective of the CONNECT project is to develop an innovative pedagogical framework that attempts to blend formal and informal learning, proposing an educational reform to science teaching. The project will create a network of museums, science centres and schools across Europe, to develop, apply and evaluate learning schemes by pointing to a future hybrid classroom that builds on the strengths of formal and informal strategies. The proposed approach will impact upon the fields of instructional technology, educational systems design and museum education. It will explore the integration of physical and computational media for the design of interactive learning environments to support learning about complex scientific phenomena. The project will be implemented on an advanced learning environment, the Virtual Science Thematic Park, developed upon emerging technology that will allow for ubiquitous access to educational and scientific resources. The CONNECT project will evolve thr...

The present study investigates some aspects of preschool teachers’ prior content knowledge and beliefs in the area of visual cognition, before they taught the Agam Program for Visual Cognition in their schools. Results show that teachers do not possess well-developed visual cognition abilities in some areas (e.g. estimation, visual memorization, reproduction of visual stimuli etc.) and in some areas their performance is similar to that of third grade students, suggesting that visual cognition abilities do not necessarily develop spontaneously with age without directed practice. Teachers believe that visual abilities develop with practice, but some are sceptical about young children’s abilities to cope with complex visual tasks. The implications of these findings to the professional development of preschool teachers in the area of visual cognition are discussed.

This case study focuses on one approach to the professional development of science and technology with regard to Project-Based Learning (PBL). Sections include: (1) rationale and goals; (2) context, population, and methods of study; (3) content and sequence of the PBL workshop; (4) teacher projects; and (5) phenomena of note. Among the conclusions are that teachers are quite enthusiastic about PBL, and they expressed their desire to see it implemented in their classrooms. (Contains 10 references.) (MM) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. 1PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND

The purpose of this article is to trace the development, validation and use of a questionnaire for evaluating teacher and student attitudes regarding Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI).  RRI is a framework, developed by the European Union, which provides general standards to guide the development of trust and confidence of the public regarding advances in science and technology, and the development of their participation in these advances.  The article traces the development of the RRI framework and focuses on its educational component, whose goal is to sensitize teachers and students into "RRI-based thinking" about past and current scenarios regarding the development of science and technology advances. The use of the RRI questionnaire is demonstrated through the presentation of teacher and student data taken before and after the implementation of RRI-based modules, developed in the EU-funded Irresistible Project. Based on this work, we suggest that the RRI question...

Despite unprecedented global challenges to the environment, research show that many young people are pessimistic about their ability to address these challenges. This paper explores one approach designed to guide middle-school teachers and their students to develop and practice agency about sustainability issues: via a curriculum that challenges students to solve problems by analyzing real-world data and developing scientific arguments, as a basis for engaging in activism. The paper begins with an overview of the United Nation’s Agenda 2030, its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the related aims of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), and a review of what is meant by student agency. Next, the goals and design features of a curricular initiative, “Speak to Me in Numbers,” are presented with a brief presentation of two units, each based on a different SDG. The paper’s research questions are (1) How were the design features of the curriculum perceived by the teachers? and (...

Despite unprecedented global challenges to the environment, research show that many young people are pessimistic about their ability to address these challenges. This paper explores one approach designed to guide middleschool teachers and their students to develop and practice agency about sustainability issues: via a curriculum that challenges students to solve problems by analyzing real-world data and developing scientific arguments, as a basis for engaging in activism. The paper begins with an overview of the United Nation's Agenda 2030, its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the related aims of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), and a review of what is meant by student agency. Next, the goals and design features of a curricular initiative, "Speak to Me in Numbers," are presented with a brief presentation of two units, each based on a different SDG. The paper's research questions are (1) How were the design features of the curriculum perceived by the teachers? and (2) What were the preliminary outcomes of the curriculum in terms of student and teacher argumentation skills and student activism? To address these questions, we present an exploratory study: observations and comments from in-service teachers and participating students regarding preliminary outcomes of the curriculum that might be related to the development of student agency. In our concluding discussion, based on these findings and relevant literature, we suggest that a promising pedagogy to strengthen student agency on sustainability issues is a datadriven pedagogy that focuses on the development of scientific argumentation, mathematical thinking and activism.

Design-Based Science (DBS) is a pedagogy in which the goal of designing an artifact contextualizes all curricular activities. Design is viewed as a vehicle through which scientific knowledge and real-world problem-solving skills can be constructed. Following call to document the design of new science pedagogies, this goal of this article is twofold: (a) to describe DBS, and (b) to evaluate whether significant science knowledge was constructed during consecutive enactments of three DBS units. In this study, 92 students participated in the consecutive enactments of three different DBS units. The development of their scientific knowledge was assessed through posters and models constructed during the curricular enactments and by identical pre-and post-instruction written tests. The posttests showed considerable gains compared with the pretests, while the models and posters show application of this newly constructed knowledge in solving a design problem. These positive results support efforts being made to restructure school science around inquiry-based curricula in general and design-based curricula in particular. ß

Coherent curricula are needed to help students develop deep understanding of important ideas in science. Too often students experience curriculum that is piecemeal and lacks coordination and consistency across time, topics, and disciplines. Investigating and Questioning our World through Science and Technology (IQWST) is a middle school science curriculum project that attempts to address these problems. IQWST units are built on five key aspects of coherence: 1) learning goal coherence, 2) intra-unit coherence between content learning goals, scientific practices, and curricular activities, 3) inter-unit coherence supporting multidisciplinary connections and dependencies, 4) coherence between professional development and curriculum materials (CM) to support classroom enactment, and 5) coherence between science literacy expectations and general literacy skills. Dealing with these aspects of coherence involves trade-offs and challenges. This paper illustrates some of the challenges related to the first three aspects of coherence and the way we have chosen to deal with them. Preliminary results regarding the effectiveness of IQWST's approach to these challenges are presented.

Design-based science (DBS) is a science pedagogy in which new scientific knowledge and problem-solving skills are constructed in the context of designing artifacts. This paper examines whether the enactment of a DBS unit supported students' efforts to construct and transfer new science knowledge and 'designerly' problem-solving skills to the solution of a new real-world design problem in a real-world setting. One hundred and forty-nine students participated in the enactment of a DBS unit. Their understanding of the curricular content was assessed by identical pre-instructional and post-instructional written tests. They were then given a new design problem as a transfer task. There was a statistically significant increase on scores from pre-test to post-test with an effect size of 1.8. There was a stronger correlation between the scores of the transfer task and those of the post-test than with those of the pre-test; we use this finding to suggest that the knowledge that was constructed during the unit enactment supported the solution of the transfer task. This has implications for the development of science curricula that aim to lead to the construction of knowledge and skills that may be useful in extra-classroom settings. Whether participation in consecutive enactments of different DBS units increases transfer remains to be investigated in more depth.