The purpose of this study was to explore instructional designs for promoting inquiry practices in secondary school textbooks. Three criteria were employed to select the textbooks: (1) approved by the Ministry of Education in Singapore and the Ministry of Education and Culture in Indonesia, (2) used in secondary schools, and (3) included content…

Demand for STEM majors is increasing, yet attrition in STEM classes is common. Exam wrappers and asking students to write on test anxiety have both been shown to be somewhat successful as simple interventions. This study examined the impact of exam wrappers (termed a post-exam wrapper) that specifically included a multiple-choice question about…

This paper reports the results of a quasi-experimental study that evaluated the effectiveness of collaborative mind mapping in three Hong Kong primary schools. More than 200 grade 4 students, divided into three pedagogical groups, participated in a variety of science learning activities with the aid of a mind map and/or collaborative group work.…

This dissertation consists of three studies exploring factors affecting whether, when and how students engage in sense making in science disciplines, and the epistemological components of instruction that impact their engagement. Each study is grounded in science education reform efforts, including the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS),…

Several studies have shown that "learner-generated external visual representations" (LGVRs) play a vital role for learning scientific concepts and processes. However, we know little about teachers' reasoning as to why and how to implement LGVR activities in their teaching. Thus, the purpose of our study is to determine why teachers let…

Curiosity is the inner drive for learning or 'hunger for learning' which is among the twenty-first-century learning competencies. Students in their earliest stage ought to exhibit curiosity to stir up knowledge acquisition and exploration, yet the development of curiosity in the context of education is considered to be unusual. This research…

Universities are recognizing the need to prepare graduates to think conceptually and have the ability to take on complex, real-world problems. Strategies to assess conceptual knowledge are limited and often require more time and effort to complete than is accessible for most undergraduate courses. Card sorting is a very broad technique for…

A differentiated science activity was created for gifted students. The focus is on Sustainable Development Goal 15 (SDG-15) for life on land, enhancing engagement, self-regulated learning skills, and scientific creativity in gifted students. The activity spanned eight lesson hours, with tasks encouraging observation, inquiry, and creative…

Protocol-guided teaching is a student-centered instructional model in which the teacher creates the learning protocol prior to the lesson in order to direct students toward active and autonomous learning. A well-structured learning protocol is essential for the effective application of this instructional paradigm. This article evaluates the…

A virus is a small, infectious particle that lives inside a host. Today, viruses have an important role in our daily life. The reason for this is that viruses, including coronavirus (COVID-19), are affecting many people in the world. The most important measure that can be taken to stop the spread of the disease will be self-taken measures along…

Ocean currents play an important role in regulating the Earth's climate by redistributing ocean heat around the planet. One important climate phenomenon that includes several large ocean currents is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which is the process of warm surface currents in the North Atlantic Ocean moving to the Arctic to…

Writing and genre scholarship has become increasingly attuned to how various nontextual features of written genres contribute to the kinds of social actions that the genres perform and to the activities that they mediate. Even though scholars have proposed different ways to account for nontextual features of genres, such attempts often remain…

Protocol-guided teaching is a student-centered instruction paradigm in which teachers compose learning protocols in advance to guide students through the entire learning process in an effort to foster in them the capacity for autonomous learning. Effective learning protocols can have a substantial impact on classroom outcomes. The purpose of this…

The brain organizes somatosensory experience based on the body location from which it originated and the pathway by which in arrived. Here, I present a classroom discussion-based activity centered around the concept of a phantom limb to allow students to explore how cortical representation of sensory experience can be altered. The goal of the…

The digestive system is a fundamental topic in biological science teaching. Despite its importance, the level of students' knowledge on the topic appears to differ from recommended levels at several educational grades. Their knowledge also seems to be resistant to change; therefore, this discrepancy may be viewed as an epistemological obstacle to…