Learning standards for K-12 science education emphasize the importance of engaging students in practices that scientists perform in their profession. K-12 teachers are expected to engage students in scientific modeling, which entails constructing, testing, evaluating, and revising their own models of science phenomena while pursuing an epistemic…

Scientific modeling and coding are critical skills to be integrated into K-12 instruction. Research has shown that preservice teachers are often ill-prepared for teaching scientific modeling, and lack opportunities to learn coding within teacher education programs. The present study reports the implementation of an instructional module and online…

Poor student engagement with academic readings has been frequently reported in college classrooms. As an effort to improve college students' reading engagement, researchers have developed a virtual environment in which students take on the role of tutor and teach a virtual tutee, the virtual tutee system (VTS). This research examined the…

In this paper, we develop a conceptual framework for an anthropomorphic change agent to motivate pre-service teachers to integrate technology into teaching and learning. This agent is designed with a hybrid persona that simulates a mentor and plays both motivation and companion roles. Based on the theoretical grounding in motivation and change…