The development of rich, reliable, and robust measures of the composition, structure, and stability of student thinking about core scientific ideas (such as natural selection) remains a complex challenge facing science educators. In their recent article (Nehm & Schonfeld 2008), the authors explored the strengths, weaknesses, and insights provided…

Teacher knowledge--indeed teachers themselves--is always unfinished and incomplete. Knowledge never exists outside of a context of use. The shift to seeing teaching as site of cultural production invites the question, What structures of human relationship will scientists and science educators construct in and through the work they perform? The…

In this article, the author gives a general introduction of a few ideas on cognitive development in children. In the first part, he deals with the topic of development, a process which concerns the totality of the structures of knowledge. He reviews the stages of development of operational structures, distinguishes four main stages of development,…

Calls for differentiating between three kinds of studies of students' conceptions in science, namely descriptive studies, explanatory studies, and studies attempting to foster conceptual change. Cites the literature about student perceptions and science instruction. (TW)

Discussed is the philosophy of the educational purpose of science education, the science involved, and the relationships of students and learning and students and content. A list of 14 references is included. (CW)

Scientific and everyday knowledge domains are compared so as to reveal the distinctive differences between their goals and the cognitive processes used to attain them. The main goals, working goals, learning difficulties, knowledge structure, concept specification, knowledge organization, role of school science, program-solving instruction, formal…

Examined are two aspects of science education--the nature of science and curriculum reform. Contemporary views on the tentative nature of science and a generative model of learning are synthesized. (KR)

Selective illustrative examples of students' learning difficulties and misconceptions in first-year general and organic chemistry are presented in the students' terms, followed by strategies the author uses to overcome the difficulties. Suggests that student misconceptions in first-year chemistry are not interrelated logically and are not prone to…

Provides examples of how concept mapping can be used to help overcome misconceptions in college chemistry. (PR)