The role of computation in science is ever-expanding and is enabling scientists to investigate complex phenomena in more powerful ways and tackle previously intractable problems. The growing role of computation has prompted calls to integrate computational thinking (CT) into science instruction in order to more authentically mirror contemporary…

Integral to fostering computational thinking (CT) skills, which are increasingly essential in today's digital era, has been the shift of paper-based pictorial modeling activities to computational modeling. Research has indicated that modeling activities can advance students' understanding of a system's mechanism (i.e., systems thinking), such as…

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) have spurred renewed interest in the epistemologies that students adopt as they engage in science practices. One framework for characterizing students' epistemologies is the "epistemologies in practice" framework (Berland et al. (2016), "Journal of Research in Science Teaching,"…

Argumentation is fundamental to science education, both as a prominent feature of scientific reasoning and as an effective mode of learning--a perspective reflected in contemporary frameworks and standards. The successful implementation of argumentation in school science, however, requires a paradigm shift in science assessment from the…

Involving students in scientific modeling practice is one of the most effective approaches to achieving the next generation science education learning goals. Given the complexity and multirepresentational features of scientific models, scoring student-developed models is time- and cost-intensive, remaining one of the most challenging assessment…

Researchers have found that computer modeling fosters the learning of causal mechanisms in systems, an important crosscutting concept in science that many novice learners find challenging. Despite the research that highlights the role of teacher's instructional practices in enacting computer tools, few studies have considered teachers' use of…

This paper builds on the current literature base about learning progressions in science to address the question, "What is the nature of the learning progression in the content domain of the structure of matter?" We introduce a learning progression in response to that question and illustrate a methodology, the Construct Modeling (Wilson,…

Curricular coherence is an indication of the alignment of content ideas, the depth at which they are studied, and the sequencing of ideas within and across grade levels and has been identified as an important predictor of student performance. This study examined the contribution of inter-unit coherence on energy to the learning of this concept…

Student construction of models is a strong focus of current research and practice in science education. In order to study in detail the interactions between students' model generation and evaluation and their development of explanatory ideas to account for magnetic phenomena, a multi-session teaching experiment was conducted with a small number of…

This quasi-experimental study investigated the effects on 558 grades five and six students of three different teaching conditions: the "classical" model of conceptual change (for which cognitive conflict is considered as a precondition to the transformation of knowledge), the "prevalence" model of conceptual change (in which…

In this study, two middle-school teachers who participated in a professional development program utilizing the transformative professional development (TPD) model are followed as they embarked upon becoming culturally relevant science teachers of Hispanic students. Using Ladson-Billings (1994) theory of culturally relevant pedagogy, teacher…

This study examines the impact of standards-based professional development on teacher efficacy and instructional practice of elementary and middle school science teachers. Professional development activities were conducted over a period of 3 years and included content courses as well as teacher involvement in professional learning communities.…

Epistemic criteria are the standards used to evaluate scientific products (e.g., models, evidence, arguments). In this study, we analyzed epistemic criteria for good models generated by 324 middle-school students. After evaluating a range of scientific models, but before extensive instruction or experience with model-based reasoning practices,…

This study aimed to determine how 33 urban 5th grade students' science conceptions changed during a place-based inquiry unit on watersheds. Research on watershed and place-based education was used as a framework to guide the teaching of the unit as well as the research study. A teacher-researcher designed the curriculum, taught the unit and…

Achievement goal theory distinguishes between mastery goals (the goals of developing competence) and performance goals (the goals of demonstrating competence) [Ames [1992] "Journal of Educational Psychology" 84: 261-271]. In this study, we employed this theory aiming to better understand why adolescents' motivation to learn science…