The present work refers to a study of 10-12-year-old students' ideas on the self- or hetero-luminosity of the Moon. To check the validity of students' reasoning on this question, we also examined their ideas on the lunar phases and how we see hetero-luminous objects. Students supported their ideas on the self- or hetero-luminosity of the Moon by…

Integrating science and mathematics in the elementary classroom is a significant challenge, as evidenced by the few convincing examples currently available in the scholarly literature. Yet, this integration is often seen as presenting epistemological and pedagogical value. This study aims to measure the impact of science and mathematics (S&M)…

Mathematical modeling is a high-leverage topic, critical for college and career readiness, participation in STEM education, and civic engagement. Mathematical modeling involves connecting real-world situations, phenomenon, and/or data with mathematical models, and in this way applies across various STEM disciplines, including mathematics,…

This study aimed to determine the effect of the model-based science writing heuristic (M-SWH) approach on students' conceptual understanding and construction of model-based argumentations in elementary school science. Participants (N = 107) were students enrolled in 4 fourth-grade classes of a public elementary school. Two classes were assigned as…

The aim of this study was to determine the professional developments of science teacher candidates over 14 weeks of microteaching practices. The sample for the study was comprised of 9 teacher candidates aged 21-23 who were studying their final year (4th year) in an elementary science education undergraduate programme of an education faculty in…

This study introduces a Comprehensive Scientific Creativity Assessment (C-SCA) instrument and empirically tests its reliability and validity. While existing instruments to measure scientific creativity generally focus on a single dimension, such as divergent thinking, the C-SCA incorporates scientific knowledge, motivation in scientific creativity…

Teacher noticing of student thinking represents a key aspect of teacher expertise as it informs teachers' actions 'on the fly' during a lesson. In science and mathematics education, teacher noticing has been conceptualised as being driven by attending to and making sense of student thinking. A range of models of noticing developed in professional…

The work of teaching includes many in-the-moment decisions for teachers to make. In this study, we focused on the decisions prospective teachers made within the elementary context specific to shared teaching practice in mathematics and science instruction -- elicit and use evidence of student thinking. Within a qualitative multisite case study, we…

In today's heavily science-dependent global society, science education should be the key to learners more fully grasping global issues. A content analysis of 24 elementary school science textbooks in Taiwan was undertaken to examine how global issues were represented. The results revealed that about half of the content was related to global…

The purpose of this mixed methods research was to investigate the development of 55 preservice elementary teachers' science teaching self-efficacy beliefs through analysis of their reflective practices in a science method course. This year-long study was conducted at two public universities located in the USA and Canada. Within the theoretical…

The intended curriculum is arguably one of the most important components within any national educational system although those in primary science have not been subject to extensive research scrutiny. Based on reformed primary science curricula from Hong Kong, mainland China, and Taiwan, we compared them on two key features: (1) levels of knowledge…

Temperature and heat are difficult concepts for children to grasp due to their abstractness. An image-to-writing approach, guided by the visualisation practices of scientists, was designed to engage elementary students with constructing images to represent their ideas about phenomena and translating these images into text using scientific…

Literacy instruction in science and math in elementary education lays a critical foundation for later content literacy development and the learning of content subjects in middle and high school. However, limited research has investigated the theoretical basis of instructional practices for science and math literacy instruction at the elementary…

This study aimed to reveal the extent to which citizenship values are included in Saudi Arabian elementary science textbooks, which teachers have to use. The content of six grades 4 to 6 textbooks used in the first and second semesters was analyzed with a focus on three themes related to citizenship values: cultural, social, and political…

This study investigates how elementary students were able to construct a human respiratory system model and, in particular, how the process of reasoning contributed to their model through the use of analogy model activities. For this study, modeling activities that included the use of analogy models were designed and implemented. Over 4 class…