Traditional modes of chemistry education in schools focus on imparting chemistry knowledge to students via instruction. Consequently, students often acquire the mistaken understanding that scientific knowledge comprises a fixed body of "proven" facts. They fail to comprehend that the construction of scientific understanding is a human…

This study investigated novel pedagogies for helping teachers infuse inquiry into a standards-based science curriculum. Using a multi-user virtual environment (MUVE) as a pedagogical vehicle, teams of middle-school students collaboratively solved problems around disease in a virtual town called River City. The students interacted with "avatars" of…

The Systems Thinking and Curriculum Innovation (STACI) Project is a multi-year research effort intended to examine the cognitive demands and consequences of learning from a systems thinking approach to instruction and from using simulation-modeling software. The purpose of the study is to test the potentials and effects of integrating the systems…

This paper examines the effect of using a systems thinking approach in existing secondary school curricula to teach content-specific knowledge as well as general problem solving skills, and the effect of using STELLA (Structural Thinking Experimental Learning Laboratory with Animation), a simulation-modeling software program, as a tool by which to…

High school physics offers opportunities to use problem solving and lab practices as well as cement skills in research, technical writing, and software applications. Describes and evaluates computer software enhancing the high school physics curriculum including spreadsheets for laboratory data, all-in-one simulators, projectile motion simulators,…

This publication contains a selection of science education research papers, beginning with an overview of trends in science education cognitive developmental research and theory in the United Kingdom. Papers that follow focus on developments in studies of thinking and reasoning, including work on concept mapping and conceptual change. Closely…

Presents results of a study that examines the development and use of computer simulations for high school science instruction and for integrated laboratory and computerized tests that are part of the biology matriculation examination in Israel. Eleven implications for teaching are presented. (MDH)