Background: Course-based research experiences (CBREs) are highly valued for science learning and research. Most are discipline-centered, but there is a great deal of interest in developing them to promote interdisciplinarity. Yet, we have much to learn about how CBREs work, and even more to learn about how disciplinary diversity operates as an…

The next generation of professors will come from today's graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, but we do not know much about their preparation to use research-validated teaching practices. This study characterizes the teaching beliefs of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows who represent future geoscience instructors though we…

Concept inventories have been determined to be useful assessment tools for evaluating students' knowledge, particularly in the sciences. However, these assessment tools must be validated to reflect as accurately as possible students' understanding of concepts. One possible threat to this validation is what previous literature calls the item order…

Coupling the study of sustainability with geoscience may enable students to explore science in a more sophisticated way by examining the social-technological-ecological relationships that exist between human-nonhuman and flora-fauna-land interactions. Elementary educators are a population capable of making these issues come to life for today's…

Background: STEM educational reform encourages a transition from instructor-centered passive learning environments to student-centered, active learning environments. Instructors adopting these changes incorporate research-validated teaching practices that improve student learning. Professional development that trains faculty to implement…

The study explored how to best use scaffolds for supporting students' inquiry practices in computer-supported learning environments. We designed a series of inquiry units assisted with three versions of written inquiry prompts (generic and context-specific); that is, three scaffold-fading conditions: implicit, explicit, and fading. We then…

Studies have proven that merging hands-on and online learning can result in an enhanced experience in learning science. In contrast to traditional online learning, multiple in-classroom activities may be involved in an augmented-reality (AR)-embedded e-learning process and thus could reduce the effects of individual differences. Using a…

According to the national survey of science education, science educators in the USA currently face many challenges such as lack of qualified secondary Earth and Space Science (ESS) teachers. Less qualified teachers may have difficulty teaching ESS because of a lack of conceptual understanding, which leads to diminished confidence in content…

A mixed methods research approach was used to investigate the impact of a geosciences research institute upon 62 science teachers' knowledge, beliefs, and teaching practices related to teaching the geosciences. Pre- and postinstitute quantitative and qualitative assessments revealed mixed results. Results of a quantitative measure found a…

Students' thinking should serve as the foundation of effective science curriculum and instruction. To promote science learning, particularly in the geosciences, teachers must attend to students' existing ideas about natural phenomena through the use of ''high-leverage'' instructional practices such as formative assessment. Elementary teachers need…

Little research has examined individual linguistic features that influence English language learners (ELLs) test performance. Furthermore, research has yet to explore the relationship between the science strand of test items and the types of linguistic features the items include. Utilizing Differential Item Functioning, this study examines ELL…

Traditionally, there has been a large gap between the scientific and educational communities in terms of communication, which hinders the transfer of new scientific knowledge to teachers and students and the understanding of each other's needs and capabilities. In this paper, we describe a workshop model we have developed to facilitate…

Targeting Outcomes of Programs (TOP) is a seven-step hierarchical programming model in which the program development and performance sides are mirror images of each other. It served as a framework to identify a simple method for targeting photographic events in nonformal education programs, indicating why, when, and how photographs would be useful…

We present a mixed-methods approach to community-based assessment design that engages tribal college and university faculty, students, and science educators, as well as experts in cultural knowledge from the Blackfeet and Diné (Navajo) nations. Information from cultural experts, gathered through a combination of sequential surveys and focus group…

Recognizing the relevance that fieldwork and field trips have in the teaching of geosciences and related learning processes, this study presents two geological fieldwork studies that were established with Portuguese secondary school students. Both studies were focused on geoscience content knowledge, and attempted to increase environmental…