Although Inquiry-Based Science Teaching (IBST) and the Nature of Science (NOS) are well documented as important aspects of teaching science subjects in schools, little research has been undertaken to understand how these aspects feature in secondary school science curricula in Tanzania. Thus, this study examined the extent to which IBST and NOS…

Assessment for learning (AfL) and differentiated instruction (DI) both imply a focus on learning processes and affect student learning positively. However, both AfL and DI prove to be difficult to implement for teachers. Two chemistry and two physics teachers were studied when designing and implementing the formative assessment of conceptual…

Recently, the chemistry education community has focused considerable effort on incorporating systems thinking into chemistry education as a means to address global challenges such as sustainability. In this project, a series of exploratory workshops was held with secondary educators (N = 12) and tertiary educators and researchers (N = 16),…

Many Liberian teachers have limited experiences and low efficacy for teaching science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), which results in students receiving little preparation and having low levels of motivation to pursue STEM careers in Liberia. Teacher attitudes are central for efficient teaching STEM. However, little is known…

Secondary school teachers in Tanzania have been attempting to implement the inquiry-based science curriculum since 2005. This study is descriptive and was designed within the realms of a Type IV case-study design (Yin, R. K. 2014. "Case study research: Design and methods" 5th ed. SAGE) to investigate their concerns in dealing with this…

Formative assessment, and especially feedback, is considered essential to student learning. To provide effective feedback, however, teachers must act upon the information that students reveal during instruction. In this study, we apply a framework of formative assessment to explore how sensitive teachers are to students' thoughts and ideas when…

This article presents and discusses outcomes arising from a recently completed National Primary Science Survey (England) intended, in part, to elicit how teachers and others perceive the effectiveness of colleagues and the schools in which they work to implement and deliver primary science within the National Curriculum. While the majority view…

This paper considers how the school science curriculum can be conceptualised in order to address the contingent and complex nature of environmental and sustainability-related knowledge and understanding. A special concern lies in the development of research perspectives and tools for investigating ways, in which teachers are faced with complex and…

The article presents an analysis of practices in teaching with computer-supported collaborative inquiry learning environments. We describe the role of the teacher in computer-supported collaborative inquiry learning by five principles that span the whole instructional process, from the preparation of the lesson up to the assessment of learning…

The apartheid policies in South Africa had a marked influence on the accessibility and quality of school science experienced by the different race groups. African learners in particular were seriously disadvantaged in this regard. The issues of equity and redress were foremost in transformation of the education system, and the accompanying…

Today's society is continuously coping with sustainability-related complex issues in the Science-Technology-Environment-Society (STES) interfaces. In those contexts, the need and relevance of the development of students' higher-order cognitive skills (HOCS) such as question-asking, critical-thinking, problem-solving and decision-making…