Biochemistry is believed to be a difficult subject to understand for most life science and medical students. This article explains an experience with a flowchart-based teaching approach that is applicable to different kinds of biochemistry courses (basic, medical, and clinical) for undergraduate and postgraduate students. After preparing the…

In this paper, we discuss what creativity may look like in the science classroom and what we learnt from teaching with student-generated diagrams to promote creativity in Year 7 Science lessons. As a result of this study, most students were able to communicate a deeper understanding of complex phenomena and were able to apply this knowledge both…

Research has explored how science teachers can create equitable learning environments. In addition, research demonstrates that representations can be powerful tools for supporting disciplinary learning and inviting and leveraging students' diverse ideas and practices. Yet, professional development (PD) about representations has primarily focused…

Background: Understanding students' preconceptions is an important initial step towards a successful and meaningful learning in physics. This is more relevant and important especially for concepts that are introduced formally as early as preschool including friction. Visual representation maybe often used as an aid to teaching, however,…

This dissertation sought to understand the evolution of four elementary teachers' (grades 1-3) teaching of science with representations over the course of one year of participation in a multi-structured professional development (PD) project referred to as RepTaL. The notion of learning to teach science using a range of representations is a…

The lesson set in this article describes an introductory learning experience using wildlife camera-based citizen science projects hosted on Zooniverse (http://www.zooniverse.org). Wildlife camera projects were chosen due to the charisma of the study organisms, student engagement while looking at images, ease of access to projects, ease of teaching…

There has never been a more pressing need for students to learn how to evaluate scientific information online than during the COVID-19 outbreak. Information, misinformation, and disinformation spread quickly across online news and social media platforms. This misleading or incorrect scientific information about infectious diseases could lead to…

This study examines the use of an explicit, reflective method for teaching the difference and relationship between scientific theories and laws to ninth-grade students. Students reflected individually and then as a whole class on theories and laws using a Venn diagram, both before and after reading short articles describing features of theories…

The visual mode provides emergent bi/multilinguals an essential resource to construct scientific explanations. Yet, while a metalanguage is used to describe the written mode of scientific language such as, claim, evidence, reason; there is little research that makes students aware of the metalanguage of a visual mode. We propose an introduction to…

As science grows in complexity, science teachers face an increasing challenge of helping students interpret models that represent complex science systems. Little is known about how teachers select and use models when planning lessons. This mixed methods study investigated the pedagogical approaches and visual models used by elementary in-service…

The population of English language learners (ELLs) is on the rise in the United States, but they are lagging behind English speaking students in several subject areas--including biology. Scholarly literature lacks information on how biology teachers use scaffolding strategies to support ELL students with inquiry skills during online simulations.…

This study evaluated the Science and Literacy Instructional Model aimed at helping primarily Hispanic bilingual/English Learners (ELs) and economically disadvantaged fifth grade students with science achievement as measured by high-stakes standardized science achievement scores. The model combined purposeful planning, innovative academic…

To an outside observer, there is nothing really novel about whiteboarding. An observer passing a classroom would see students using dry-erase markers to write and sketch their ideas on large, dry-erase-type boards. However, like so many things in education, the subtleties that an outside observer might not notice are the precise things that make…

This column provides ideas and techniques to enhance your science teaching. This month's issue discusses planning and using interactive word walls to support science and reading instruction. Many classrooms have word walls displaying vocabulary that students have learned in class. Word walls serve as visual scaffolds to support instruction. To…

This research aims at revealing (1) the suitability of physics e-scaffolding teaching media with mathematical and image/diagrammatic representation, as well as (2) the effectiveness of the e-scaffolding teaching media with mathematical and image/diagrammatic representation to improve students' problem solving ability and scientific attitude. It is…