This article argues that what is most at risk in schooling during a global pandemic, or other similar broad challenges to normal functioning, are those elements that might be considered the less traditional and so the most progressive. After setting out some general background common to the challenge faced by schools and school teachers, this…

Chemical bonding is one of the key and basic concepts in chemistry. The learning of many of the concepts taught in chemistry, in both secondary schools as well as in the colleges, is dependent upon understanding fundamental ideas related to chemical bonding. Nevertheless, the concept is perceived by teachers, as well as by learners, as difficult,…

The teaching of introductory computer programming seems far from successful, with many first-year students performing more poorly than expected. One possible reason for this is that novices hold "non-viable" mental models (internal explanations of how something works) of key programming concepts which then cause misconceptions and difficulties. An…

In recent years science educators have placed increasing emphasis on the importance of understanding student knowledge. The research aimed at exploring student knowledge--misconception research, nature of science studies, and conceptual change research--has proved useful in telling us what concepts students know before and after instruction.…

Although all of us must teach against the text at times, I find myself doing this most often when teaching about qualitative methods in the context of a general introductory methods course. Myths about the nature and practice of qualitative research are both embedded in the folklore of mainstream sociology and supported by the textbooks that we…

In this paper I present a pedagogical method called Writing Answers to Learn (WAL) which combines Problem-Based Learning (PBL) and Exploratory Writing to address the interrelated pedagogical problems of misconceptions, resistance, retention, and transfer. I analyze the use of this combined method in a course on racial and ethnic relations and…