Take a selection of balls and marbles along to a nearby playground slide and let students investigate factors that may influence how balls accelerate down an inclined plane. Students can make hypotheses in small groups, plan investigations to test multiple possible explanations and draw conclusions about the importance of different variables. The…

This review study includes 19 articles from 2016 to 2021 focusing on in-service science teachers' professional development targeted to promote student conceptual understanding. The present study is guided by the following research question: "What characterizes high-quality in-service science teachers' professional development targeted to…

Many studies investigating inquiry learning in science domains have appeared over the years. Throughout this period, inquiry learning has been regularly criticized by scholars who favor direct instruction over inquiry learning. In this vein, Zhang, Kirschner, Cobern, and Sweller (2022) recently asserted that direct instruction is overall superior…

This case study focuses on methodological challenges to conducting an ecologically sound, mixed-methods, longitudinal, nonexperimental study of teaching. Examining rich and complex environments is at the heart of research on teaching and learning. We describe situational obstacles we had to overcome, the search for valid and reliable measurements,…

Models and modeling are considered integral parts of scientific literacy, reflecting educators' efforts to introduce and engage students in authentic scientific inquiry through Modeling-based Learning (MbL) approaches in science. Over the years research has developed a considerable amount of knowledge concerning MbL. Our purpose in this paper was…

This article presents an initiative that is based on active learning pedagogy by engaging elementary and middle school students in the toy design and development field. The case study presented in this article is about student learning experiences during their participation in the TOYchallenge National Toy Design Competition. Students followed the…

For the thirty-third year, the Research and Theory Division of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) is sponsoring the publication of these Proceedings. This is Volume #2 of the 33rd "Annual Proceedings of Selected Papers on the Practice of Educational Communications and Technology." This volume includes…