Educational reform priorities such as emphasis on quantitative modelling (QM) have positioned undergraduate biology instructors as designers of QM experiences to engage students in authentic science practices that support the development of data-driven and evidence-based reasoning. Yet, little is known about how biology instructors adapt to the…

Student-Question-Based Inquiry (SQBI) represents a form of inquiry where pupils design their research questions, hypotheses, and protocols. The "Savanturiers" program aims at helping teachers overcome their potential apprehension of SQBI by matching hundreds of elementary and middle school teachers with mentors. These mentors are usually…

This paper reports on the design and enactment of an instructional strategy aimed to support students in constructing scientific explanations. Informed by the philosophy of science and linguistic studies of science, a new instructional framework called premise--reasoning--outcome (PRO) was conceptualized, developed, and tested over two years in…

This narrative case study examined the relationship between teacher identity and elementary science teaching. Teacher identity was described using a modification of Gee's framework incorporating three perspectives: the teachers' self-described identity, the researchers' view of teacher identity, and the students' views of teacher identity. Over…

This study investigated a professional development model designed to improve teachers' inquiry teaching efficacy as well as the quality of their inquiry instruction through engaging teachers in practice-teaching and reflection sessions. The programme began with a two-week summer Institute focused on both inquiry pedagogy and science content and…

This longitudinal study explores the effects of an after-school, inquiry-based science intervention on improving low-achieving elementary school children's affective perceptions of learning science (APLS) and positive thinking. Thirty-nine low-achieving children nominated by their teachers attended a three-semester intervention and formed the…

In this article, we present a mixed-methods study of 2 schools' elementary science programs including outdoor instruction specific to each school's culture. We explore fifth-grade students in measures of science knowledge, environmental attitudes, and outdoor comfort levels including gender and ethnic differences. We further examine students'…

Understanding frames of reference is critical in describing planetary motion and learning astronomy. Historically, the geocentric and heliocentric models were defended and advocated against each other. Today, there are still many people who do not understand the relationship between the two models. This topic is not adequately treated in astronomy…

The study examined US elementary teachers' knowledge and practices in four key domains of science instruction with English language learning (ELL) students. The four domains included: (1) teachers' knowledge of science content, (2) teaching practices to promote scientific understanding, (3) teaching practices to promote scientific inquiry, and (4)…

The study explored the origins of students' data handling knowledge and skills employed during secondary Science lessons. Transfer of learning was explored in an authentic school context, describing when transfer does and does not occur, conditions that appear to foster transfer, and impacts of different types of transfer on teaching and learning.…

The term scientific literacy is defined differently in different contexts. The term literacy simply refers to the ability for one to read and write, but recent studies in language literacy have extended this definition. New literacy research seeks a redefinition in terms of how skills are used rather than how they are learned. Contemporary…

This study explored teachers' pedagogical strategies for using multimedia simulation to structure and support secondary science teaching. Expertise was investigated across a range of classroom settings to analyse how specialist knowledge is situated within and adapted to the teaching and learning context. Analysis of data arising from 10 lesson…

This paper sets out to identify some key problems, issues and challenges relating to out-of-school experiences of learners in science teaching that emerged during classroom observations in schools in Botswana. Generally, there is evidence suggesting weak incorporation of learners' experiences into teaching. The experiences seemed to have a lower…

Increased understanding of the link between learning and assessment combined with a shift to view learning as more a social than an individual process have contributed to an appreciation of the role that classroom assessment can play in enhancing student learning and achievement. Nonetheless, very little is known about student experience of…

Synthesized are the results of five qualitative investigations of high school science classrooms in Western Australia and in the state of Georgia. Gender differences were observed in each study and teachers were not aware of their occurrence. (Author/YP)