This study provides insights into the use of metaphors in protein synthesis descriptions in upper secondary chemistry and biology textbooks. Data were collected from seven Swedish textbooks and analyzed with the Metaphor Identification Protocol and categorized within the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. The results reveal two main parallel…

This dissertation discusses the gestures produced by students as they learn about the inorganic chemistry topic of symmetry and group theory. Also included is an overview of the development and implementation of a symmetry and group theory laboratory activity, as well as an investigation seeking to promote gestural mimicry and uncover design…

A number of scholars have shown the prevalence of multiple metaphors in biological conceptions of the living cell. However, there is little research into unpacking these metaphors to understand their ideological implications for scientific knowledge and science education. In this paper, I perform a critical discourse analysis of the representation…

In this study, we explore the use of analogies with classical physics in introductory quantum physics (QP) teaching. This work is part of a larger project in which a learning sequence covering three introductory QP topics was designed, tested, and evaluated in collaboration with high school teachers and physics education researchers. Based on the…

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of narrative anatomy education and traditional anatomy education on academic achievement. The study included 64 students who were randomly divided into two groups. The two groups were (n = 32) control (Group 1) and (n = 32) experimental (Group 2). The pretest scores of the two groups were 36.40…

The study aims to learn that they want to reflect on their reflective thoughts and reveal how they reflect what they have learned. Reflective thinking, one of the higher-order thinking skills, enables students to learn more easily and permanently. Students with high reflective thinking skills will be more successful both in their academic and…

To inform teacher education programs, it is imperative to uncover preservice teachers' (PSTs) implicit and tacit beliefs about teaching and learning science. The study of teachers' beliefs requires a range of methodological approaches to unearth their tacit beliefs. In that regard, this study used metaphor construction in conjunction with drawing…

Teaching with analogies is an important pedagogy that helps learners construct abstract conceptions through reasoning with something familiar. Heat concepts were chosen for this study because they have an intangible nature and involve complex mechanisms that often challenge school-aged learners. Learning this kind of complex concept with analogies…

This study explored online mentoring dialogues of first-year science teachers (FYSTs) to construct a model that was informed by metaphors in teaching dilemmas. Nine teachers' yearlong threaded dialogues were archived and first analyzed by Windschitl's (2002) four dilemma categories, and later by Lakoff and Johnson's (2003) conceptual metaphor…

To improve understanding of identities and inverses, and to provide a stronger foundation for future mathematics, Sandra Miles designed a two-part lesson that makes the relationship between identities and inverses explicit. This article illustrates Miles' teaching of the first part of the lesson, focused on addition and subtraction, and then gives…

Understanding how physicists solve problems can guide the development of methods that help students learn and improve at solving complex problems. Leveraging the framework of cognitive task analysis, we conducted semistructured interviews with theoretical physicists (N=11) to gain insight into the cognitive processes and skills that they use in…

Students of physiology are taught that the body's homeostatic mechanisms are in place to maintain the body's internal environment. This is most often associated with maintaining health. Congestive Heart Failure represents a disease in which the body's homeostatic mechanisms worsen the progression of the disease. Using the analogy of Santa Claus…

Striving to better understand exemplification, this study examines the types of animal behavior references (anthropomorphic/non-anthropomorphic) and taxonomic groups featured in the examples given by an undergraduate biology instructor during a semester-long course. It is reported that instruction was dominated by anthropomorphic examples of…

Chemistry as a discipline in general incorporates abstract concepts, which should be visualized through experiment- and application-oriented methods. It is a well-known fact in Turkey that chemistry class offered by simple and traditional methods cannot be understood by students at a satisfactory level. Such chemical subjects as atoms, molecules,…

Abstract concepts dominate university science teaching, and much of this content is taught without sufficient connection to students' prior knowledge or everyday experiences. As this can be problematic for students, the aim of this research was to determine the utility and effectiveness of a professional development module on using analogies to…