Science is at heart a practical subject, but the perception of what makes good teaching and learning through practical science is often misunderstood. Through working with teachers on professional development courses at the UK's National Science Learning Centre, and drawing on work carried out by other organisations, we present some thoughts and…

This paper reports on a project that aims to foster interdisciplinary collaboration between mathematicians and mathematics educators in pre-service teacher education. The project involves 23 investigators from six universities. Interviews were conducted with selected project participants to identify conditions that enable or hinder collaboration,…

Formative assessment has been demonstrated to result in increased student achievement across a variety of educational contexts. When using formative assessment strategies, teachers engage students in instructional tasks that allow the teacher to uncover levels of student understanding so that the teacher may change instruction accordingly. Tools…

Since 2006, the Kolumbus-Kids project in Germany has been supporting gifted learners between the ages 9 and 12. Selected children from regional schools are invited to participate in courses dealing with biological problems and phenomena at university. In order to attend these sessions, they first have to pass a special performance test and a test…

Dual-enrollment (DE) science courses offer a way to strengthen the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics pipeline between high school and college. These courses offer high school students the opportunity to experience college science in a more supported environment, allowing them to adjust to the different academic and social demands…

A reflective portfolio as a capstone assignment was selected to accomplish recognition by teachers completing a science, technology, mathematics, engineering master's program for elementary teachers about their professional and personal changes and to provide program evaluators additional qualitative data regarding attainment of program goals. As…

Immunological detection of proteins is an essential method to demonstrate to undergraduate biology students, however, is often difficult in resource and time poor student laboratory sessions. This method describes a failsafe method to rapidly and economically demonstrate this technique using biotinylated proteins or biotin itself as targets for…

Oranges, flying disks, pool noodles, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipe may seem like items discarded after a Rube Goldberg experiment, but in fact, these objects were used in teaching science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). This article describes a project in which The Center of Ocean Sciences Education Excellence SouthEast (COSEE SE)…

In this article, the author presents the science and engineering practices from the recently released "A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas" (NRC 2011). The author recognizes the changes implied by the new framework, and that a new generation of science education standards will present new…

With the two-year pilot of "Getting Practical" drawing to a close, new ways to embed the key messages into existing CPD programmes are being sought. In "Embedding Getting Practical," the first author describes how she has been able to do this with the courses she is involved with. In "ASE Improving Practical Work in Triple Science LSN Network,"…

There is a dynamic synergy between the visual arts and the natural sciences. For example, science relies heavily on individuals with visual-art skills to render detailed illustrations, depicting everything from atoms to zebras. Likewise, artists apply analytic, linear, and logical thinking to compose and scale their work of art. These parallel…

"Potemkin schools" is used as the phrase to capture what a US science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) public speciality high school becomes as a result of its institutional branding. By way of an examination of the efforts of one teacher drawn into school branding through his "inquiry-based reform" of an Advanced Chemistry course,…

In this study, a sample activity developed in the workshops called "Science education in multicultural environment" of the program "Integrative teaching in multicultural environment" was presented. Workshops about varied subjects were carried out by participants representing four countries and participants developed teaching…

The development of universities as independent scientific centers determines their mission to incorporate the most modern achievements of science into the students' practical training. This research on the attitudes of the participants in this process towards the use of modern practices encompasses both trainers and students, and it consists of…

Professor John Rice, a pioneer of the Australian Science and Mathematics School (ASMS), recognized that schools' curricula were at odds with the kind of science and mathematics driving the new economy. In addition to curriculum that lacked relevance to contemporary life, negative student attitudes and a shortage of qualified science and…