When teachers or students assess the quality of ideas in science classes, they do so mostly based on "textbook correctness"; ideas are good to the extent they align with or lead to the content as presented in the textbook or curriculum. Such appeals to authority are at odds with the values and practices within the disciplines of science. There has…

Primary science education is a concern around the world and quality mentoring within schools can develop pre-service teachers' practices. A five-factor model for mentoring has been identified, namely, personal attributes, system requirements, pedagogical knowledge, modelling, and feedback. Final-year pre-service teachers (mentees, n = 211) from…

Greater attention to the college and career readiness problem by state leaders and policymakers could drastically boost the numbers and percentages of students who graduate from high school ready for college and career study. This chapter traces the author's work in developing California State University's Early Assessment Program, an initiative…

In 2000, California introduced science content standards as part of an across the curriculum reform. This presented a special challenge for elementary teachers due to an increased emphasis on math and language arts, and limited science background and resources. This two year qualitative study looks at a professional development program that…

This report examines the effects of increasing science course-taking requirements in the Chicago Public Schools. CPS has been at the forefront of the national movement to require a college-preparatory curriculum for all high school students. In 1997, CPS mandated that all entering ninth-graders take a college-preparatory curriculum in high school,…

This is the fourth in a series of eight newsletters highlighting best practices presented at the 2009 HSTW Staff Development Conference in Atlanta. These newsletters contain information about successful actions schools across the nation are taking to join hands-on and heads-on learning in ways that increase student motivation and achievement. This…

Reviews into teacher education emphasise the need for preservice teachers to have more school-based experiences. In this study, a school- based experience was organised within a nine-week science curriculum university unit that allowed preservice teachers' repeated experiences in teaching primary science. This research uses a survey, questionnaire…

Recent developments in computing and mobile technologies have enabled the mobile and ubiquitous learning approach, which situates students in an environment that combines real-world and digital-world learning resources. Although such an approach seems to be innovative and interesting, several problems have been revealed when applying it to…

The author describes how case study methods were used to understand the intricacies of curriculum adoption in one school district and the context in which an adoption decision was made. As data collection and interpretation commenced, understanding of the perceptions of the district stakeholders of their process of curriculum adoption became an…

The purpose of this paper is to provide an historical perspective of the foundational points of Science, Technology and Society (STS), the reasons that STS is involved in Science Education Programs, and the effort of connecting and integrating STS into the curricula in Turkey. This study consists of two main sections. The first section focuses on…

With summer in full swing and the sun is naturally on our minds, what better time to take advantage of a host of free materials provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Sun Wise program. Sun Wise aims to teach students and teachers about the stratospheric ozone layer, ultraviolet (UV) radiation, and how to be safe while in the Sun.…

Calibrated Peer Review (CPR), an online program that purportedly helps students develop as writers and critical thinkers, is being increasingly used by science educators. CPR is an enticing tool since it does not require instructors to grade student writing, and instructors can adopt assignments directly from a library. To determine the extent to…

Scholars have argued that the history of science might facilitate an understanding of processes of science. Focusing on science education for citizenship and active involvement in debates on socioscientific issues, one might argue that today's post-academic science differs from academic science in the past, making the history of academic science…

This article reports on an analysis of alignment between NY state core curricula and NY Regents tests in physics and chemistry. Both the curriculum and test were represented by a two dimensional table consisting of topics and cognitive demands. The cell values of the table were numbers of major understandings in the curriculum and points of test…

Textuality is often thought of in linguistic terms; for instance, the talk and writing that circulate in the classroom. In this paper I take a multimodal perspective on textuality and context. I draw on illustrative examples from school Science and English to examine how image, colour, gesture, gaze, posture and movement--as well as writing and…