We examined the sophistication of middle school students' mechanistic explanations of genetics phenomena and how they interact with a technology-based explanation tool as they articulate and organize their ideas about the phenomena. We coordinated curriculum and assessment design frameworks to develop a middle school curriculum unit that engages…

The need to prepare students with twenty-first-century skills through STEM-related teaching is strong, especially at the elementary level. However, most teacher education preparation programs do not focus on STEM education. In an attempt to provide an exemplary model of a STEM unit, we used a rapid prototyping approach to transform an…

Reforms such as technology-enhanced instruction require principal leadership. Yet, many principals report that they need help to guide implementation of science and technology reforms. We identify strategies for helping principals provide this leadership. A two-phase design is employed. In the first phase we elicit principals' varied ideas about…

Infusing engineering design projects in K-12 settings can promote interest and attract a wide range of students to engineering careers. However, the current climate of high-stakes testing and accountability to standards leaves little room to incorporate engineering design into K-12 classrooms. We argue that design-based learning, the combination…

The emerging field of urban ecology has the potential to engage urban youth in the practices of scientists by studying a locally relevant environmental problem. To this end, we are developing curriculum modules designed to engage students in learning science through the use of emerging information technology. In this paper, we describe the impact…

Drawing on game-design principles and an underlying situated theoretical perspective, we developed and researched a 3D game-based curriculum designed to teach water quality concepts. We compared undergraduate student dyads assigned randomly to four different instructional design conditions where the content had increasingly level of…

I report on benefits from 26 teacher-participant evaluators of a computer game designed to motivate learning and to ease conceptual understanding of biology in South Africa. Using a developmental, social constructivist and interpretative model, the recommendation is to include the value systems and needs of end-users (through social dialogue);…

The science education community has been challenged to develop curricula that offer science educators and students a variety of experiences that highlight the advances of technologies. Although many approaches have been suggested for using technologies in school, there has been little research on its use as a tool with middle school students.…

Discusses factors critical in forming a distance-learning institute: quality of learning provided each student, whether courses work for very large numbers of students, and cost per student hour for both development and delivery. Includes strategies for developing curriculum units needed to support distance learning. (Author/MKR)

This study used innovative assessment practices to obtain and document broad learning outcomes for a 15-hour game-based curriculum in Quest Atlantis, a multi-user virtual environment that supports school-based participation in socio scientific inquiry in ecological sciences. Design-based methods were used to refine and align the enactment of…

Introduces the concept of synergy and synergy research conducted in the context of a water quality project and CILT2000, a meeting of the Center for Innovative Learning Technologies (CILT). Shares ways in which synergy research addresses methodological questions, promotes collaborative partnerships, and contributes to equity. (Contains 16…

Fully half of the curriculum at Roskilde University in Denmark is student-driven group research project work that is often interdisciplinary. Describes the practice of group project work in the sciences at RUC and evaluates implications for educational practice in the United States. (Author/SAH)

Describes Project 2061 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a long-term initiative for systemic reform of K-12 education in science, mathematics, and technology. (PR)

Examines the teaching of science and technology in a new curriculum in the last year of high school in Victoria, Australia. Physics and chemistry were linked to the study of materials and technology. The area of materials related all three subjects but enrollments were much higher for physics and chemistry than for materials and technology. (AIM)

Introduces the Amazing Space program which is designed to enhance student mathematics, science, and technology skills using recent data and results from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Hubble Space Telescope mission. Explains the process of designing multi-media resources in a five-week summer workshop that partners…