The initial learning experience is a critical opportunity to support conceptual understanding of abstract STEM concepts. Although hands-on activities and physical three-dimensional models are beneficial, they are seldom utilized and are replaced increasingly by digital simulations and laboratory exercises presented on touchscreen tablet computers.…

Computational modelling is widely used in biological science. Therefore, biology students need to learn computational modelling. However, there is a lack of evidence about how to teach computational modelling in biology and what the effects are on student learning. The purpose of this intervention-control study was to investigate how knowledge in…

Virtual Reality (VR) has been widely adopted in educational research; however, its implementation in the classroom is still not as well known as in the research field. In other words, there is a gap between researchers and practitioners regarding the pedagogical issue. This study aimed to explore how VR could be applied in science classrooms using…

The "Next Generation Science Standards" call for engaging K-12 students in three-dimensional learning, in which students make sense of phenomena or solve problems by simultaneously using science and engineering practices (SEPs), crosscutting concepts (CCCs), and disciplinary core ideas (DCIs). Decades of education research suggest…

This paper presents MATLAB user interfaces for two multiphase kinetic models: the kinetic double-layer model of aerosol surface chemistry and gas--particle interactions (K2-SURF) and the kinetic multilayer model of aerosol surface and bulk chemistry (KM-SUB). Each interface has simple and user-friendly features that allow undergraduate and…

The creation of new knowledge in the form of scientific models is a cornerstone of the process of science. In physics laboratory instruction, students are very often stuck in a confirmatory mindset; they have been conditioned to believe that the role of experimentation in the classroom and in the world is to verify known facts. This mindset is…

Mechanical engineering students often find the formulation and analysis of dynamical systems difficult. The response of some mechanical engineering undergraduates is that as much as possible courses on mechanics are best avoided. The aim of this paper is to produce some interesting dynamical systems that may help to change the opinions of the…

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…

This study aims to design an educational process for teaching scientific concepts during the preschool period based on the instructional design model of Seels and Glasgow and to evaluate its effectiveness. For this purpose, a material set incorporating a teacher's manual and interactive holographic materials was developed. The teacher's manual…

Interactive simulations allow students to discover the underlying principles of a scientific phenomenon through their own exploration. Unfortunately, students often struggle to learn effectively in these environments. Classifying students' interaction data in the simulations based on their expected performance has the potential to enable adaptive…

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…

Researchers have found that computer modeling fosters the learning of causal mechanisms in systems, an important crosscutting concept in science that many novice learners find challenging. Despite the research that highlights the role of teacher's instructional practices in enacting computer tools, few studies have considered teachers' use of…

This study aims to develop an augmented reality (AR) board game for teaching atomic models and measure its effectiveness from the student's point of view. The Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation model was used to create the AR board game to help achieve the study objectives. The study collected data from three focus…

The role of virtual simulations in the evolution of primary school students' mental models about electrostatics is investigated by analysing the answers of two groups of 9-10 years old pupils inside instructional sequences that combine two hands-on activities using balloons and jackets with the same activities using PhET simulations: one group…

Visualization can be a motivating way to teach students about molecules. Nowadays, the available experimental data and accurate computational results allow students to build realistic and accurate molecular models. These models include the representation of complex systems such as proteins, membranes, or nanotubes. However, the visualization of…