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…

The theoretical construct of teacher noticing has allowed mathematics teacher educators to examine teacher thinking and practice by looking at the range of activities that teachers notice in the classroom. Guided by this approach to the study of teacher thinking, the central goal of this exploratory study was to identify what prospective science…

Even though school administrators and their leadership practices are rarely explored within science education research, our recent efforts to understand organizational influences on achievement disparities induced an elevated regard for elementary school principals. In this paper, we report on policy buffering by principals at schools whose…

Criticizes Gene Glass' recommendations on the use of creative geniuses'' to mediate'' basic knowledge from allied sciences and to create curriculum materials. (CC)

Findings indicate that students whose teachers support their competence to make classroom decisions, compared to students whose teachers do not, are confident and more committed to making classroom decisions. Students in a cooperative learning structure, compared to those in a competitive one, expect enjoyable and productive decision-making…

Reports the results of two experiments that examined the relative effects of questions requiring decisions, statements providing the decision information to the students, questions not requiring decisions, and control procedures on student's memory for chemistry text reading materials. Discusses results in terms of an elaboration perspective on…

Investigates the predictive ability of two sociological theories of group decision making, the social decision scheme and the valence distribution model. Reports that student beliefs at the end of the simulation deviated from group consensus and that the two models could not account for the deviation. (Author/YP)

Described is a cost-effectiveness analysis applied to the question of the probable impact of 69 actions advocated for improving science education. The major objectives and the 11 categories of interventions are discussed in regard to effective schools and implementing educational change. (KR)