Learning progressions (LPs) present a potential tool to guide students toward deeper understanding of core concepts as they move through a curriculum. In addition to providing a theoretical scheme for education researchers, LPs can provide a powerful framework for instructors and students in organizing curricula. We have developed the outline of a…

Whether to engage student preconceptions to facilitate conceptual change is an area of debate among conceptual change theorists. Here, we evaluate the efficacy of a preconceptions-based instructional sequence about groundwater previously described by (Arthurs, 2019). To assess the impact this instructional sequence had on facilitating the…

How can science instructors prepare students for the statistics needed in authentic inquiry labs? We designed and assessed four instructional modules with the goals of increasing student confidence, appreciation, and performance in both experimental design and data analysis. Using extensions from a just-in-time teaching approach, we introduced…

Examines two instructional strategies, the traditional and learning cycle approaches, and compares them with regard to the variables of sequence, format, and necessity. Concludes that students exposed to the laboratory and discussion type had higher test scores than those in the lecture or reading groups. (Author/RT)