As professional science becomes increasingly computational, researchers and educators are advocating for the integration of computational thinking (CT) into science education. Researchers and policymakers have argued that CT learning opportunities should begin in elementary school and span across the K-12 grades. While researchers and policymakers…

Preparing students to achieve the lofty goal of functional scientific literacy entails addressing the normative and non-normative facets of socioscientific issues (SSI) such as scientific processes, the nature of science (NOS) and diverse sociocultural perspectives. SSI instructional approaches have demonstrated some efficacy for promoting…

Little is known about how the content of a video case influences what preservice teachers learn about science teaching. This study was designed to determine the impact of two different video cases on preservice elementary teachers' conceptions of multiple aspects of effective science teaching, with one video selected to focus attention on the role…

Curriculum materials are crucial tools with which teachers engage students in science as inquiry. In order to use curriculum materials effectively, however, teachers must develop a robust capacity for pedagogical design, or the ability to mobilize a variety of personal and curricular resources to promote student learning. The purpose of this study…

Dynamic inquiry learning emphasizes aspects of change, intellectual flexibility, and critical thinking. Dynamic inquiry learning is characterized by the following criteria: learning as a process, changes during the inquiry, procedural understanding, and affective points of view. This study compared the influence of open versus guided inquiry…

This case study explored sociocultural forces that influenced three 10th grade public high school biology teachers' instructional goals, instructional acts, and identity narratives related to the teaching of evolution. Primary data included field observations of classroom instruction and teacher interviews. Secondary data included informal…

This study has two purposes: (a) methodological--to design and test a new instrument able to reflect changes in attitudes toward science over time, and (b) investigative--to find out the effect of two similar curricular treatments on the attitudes of two classes. Items about the relevance of science to students' lives were developed,…