Education systems increasingly emphasize the importance of scientific reasoning skills such as "generating hypotheses" and "evaluating evidence." Despite this importance, we do not know which tests of scientific reasoning exist, which skills they emphasize, how they conceptualize scientific reasoning, and how well they are…

Researchers have indicated that the collaborative problem-solving space afforded by the collaborative systems significantly impact the problem-solving process. However, recent investigations into collaborative simulations, which allow a group of students to jointly manipulate a problem in a shared problem space, have yielded divergent results…

Across the United States, political leaders, educators, and business persons are issuing an urgent call for reform in STEM education (NGSS Lead States 2013). One important response to this call is Integrated STEM, which the National Governor's Association (2007, p. 7) says involves, "... an emphasis on design and problem solving in…

A secondary school in Singapore incorporated twenty-first century learning into their science curriculum through an inquiry-based Integrated Science module. This study examines Secondary 2 students' perceptions of twenty-first century learning through this module. Through pre- and post-study surveys of 227 students and focus group interviews with…

Learn about the Challenge Based Science Learning Project and its larger implications for the fields of Next Generation Science Learning and Open Educational Resources. The project involved 18 middle school teachers and five administrators from three U.S. school districts partnering with instructional coaches and learning sciences researchers from…

A systems-based classroom intervention on environmental education was designed for seventh grade students; the results were evaluated to see its impact on the development of systems thinking skills and standard science achievement and whether the systems approach is a more effective way to teach environmental issues that are dynamic and complex. A…

This article pertains to a problem on static friction that concerns a block of mass "M" resting on a rough inclined plane. The coefficient of static friction is microsecond and the inclination angle theta is greater than tan[superscript -1] microsecond. This means that some force "F" must be applied (see Fig. 1) to keep the…

In the modern physics unit included in the course curriculum of grade 10 physics introduced in the 2007-2008 education year, the aim is that students at this grade level are aware of any developments which constitute modern physics and may be considered new, and interpret whether mass, length and time values of the motions at any velocities close…

The method of least squares (LS) yields exact solutions for the adjustable parameters when the number of data values n equals the number of parameters "p". This holds also when the fit model consists of "m" different equations and "m = p", which means that LS algorithms can be used to obtain solutions to systems of…

Students must learn effective problem solving strategies in order to develop expertise in physics. Effective problem solving strategies include a conceptual analysis of the problem followed by planning of the solution, and then implementation, evaluation, and reflection upon the process. Research suggests that converting a problem from the initial…

To show students how engineering design practices reduce the impacts of a natural hazard, the authors--two science educators and an elementary teacher--taught a three-day 5E lesson that focused on hurricanes. They specifically focused on hurricanes because their students are located near a coastal area and are familiar with the effects of this…

It is not uncommon for students to find themselves underprepared when entering a post secondary institution. In additional to lower levels of academic achievement, underprepared students may not be aware that they lack the skills needed to be successful and effectively acquire and process information. Because of this, students that enter…

In science education, conventional problem practice hardly helps students reach "conceptual understanding" with which they can solve various problems by making appropriate models of target systems. Students often superficially read the solution of a problem and apply it wrongly to others without understanding the model. It is difficult…

The Scientific Computing for Chemists course taught at Wabash College teaches chemistry students to use the Python programming language, Jupyter notebooks, and a number of common Python scientific libraries to process, analyze, and visualize data. Assuming no prior programming experience, the course introduces students to basic programming and…

One primary goal of many science courses is for students to learn creative problem-solving skills; that is, integrating concepts, explaining concepts in a problem context, and using concepts to solve problems. However, what science instructors see is that many students, even those having excellent SAT/ACT and Advanced Placement scores, struggle in…