Cultivating students' scientific knowledge and developing their capability in scientific inquiry depends on a teacher's ability to use existing resources to design rich learning opportunities. Designing such experiences is not easy, and is particularly challenging for new teachers who have little experience making decisions about the best way to…

Many students possess their own unique potential and "genius," but seem to base their worth on the status of grades instead of their connection to education itself. Antonio Salieri, for instance, created wonderful, emotionally binding music throughout his lifetime. Salieri however, never saw the beauty in his work because Mozart, a child…

American classrooms are increasingly heterogeneous linguistically. If all students are to engage in three-dimensional learning, how are educators making classroom assessments accessible and meaningful for emergent bilingual learners? There are few classroom assessment exemplars that embody the NGSS three-dimensional vision of the…

Learning centers can help teachers assess students' content knowledge without penalizing them for language barriers. With the increasing number of English language learners (ELLs) in classrooms, the emphasis on mastery of content and inclusion of all students in class discussions and activities will provide all students a chance for scientific…

Despite the burgeoning numbers of English language learners (ELLs) in our schools, many science teachers have little training in meeting their specialized needs. By the year 2010, it is estimated that 40% of K-12 classrooms in the United States will contain nonnative English speakers with varying levels of proficiency (Thomas and Collier 2002).…

Teachers know what a daunting job it can be to ensure that all students in a class learn effectively. In addition to the usual difficulties of gaining everyone's attention at once, instructors also run into the issue of preferred learning styles. In any classroom environment, the same topic is taught to multiple students, and each student may…

One way of implementing project-based science (PBS) is to use problem-based learning (PBL), in which students formulate their own problems. These problems are often ill-structured, mirroring complex real-life problems where data are often messy and inclusive. In this article, the authors describe how they used PBL in a ninth-grade biology class in…

Presents one teacher's classroom method for helping students to evaluate situations that are not clear-cut and easily answered. The method involves using essays that challenge students' reasoning abilities. Includes six sample essay questions and describes how they are used in the classroom. (LZ)

Science education has moved from the traditional lecture-and-demonstration model toward a student inquiry model. Inquiry activities allow students to discover many relationships of science for themselves. However beneficial this shift may be, former assessment methods used in the traditional model may no longer effectively determine student…

Describes the selection and implementation of an authentic assessment model for evaluating students' science laboratory knowledge and skills. Provides sample problems and a scoring form for the performance-based science laboratory test. (MDH)