The Next Generation Science Standards and increasing linguistic diversity of students in United States science classrooms require language-focused science instruction for which many secondary science teachers are not prepared. To date, minimal research has addressed how to best support secondary science pre-service teachers (PSTs) in teaching in…

Science education policies and standards have called for educators to teach students about the Nature of Science (NOS) and engage them in Culturally Relevant Science Teaching (CRST), which requires critical shifts away from traditional science teaching. As such, teachers are being asked to possess or take up conceptions of science that challenge…

The ability to design and interpret controlled experiments is an important scientific process skill and a common objective of science standards. Numerous intervention studies have investigated how the control-of-variables-strategy (CVS) can be introduced to students. However, a meta-analysis of 72 intervention studies found that the opportunity to…

This research studied a group of three preservice elementary teachers creating a narrated stop-motion animation (Slowmation) from start to finish in 3?hours to explain the challenging concept of "phases of the moon" to elementary school children. The research questions investigated the preservice teachers' learning before and after the…

Inquiry and scientific inquiry are distinguished in which various connotations associated with the term "inquiry method" are reviewed. Basic competencies to be acquired by students before scientific inquiry can be accomplished are listed; reasons for these prerequisites are given. (CS)

Presents and analyzes data focusing on how teacher and students moved between theory and data in a unit designed to engage seventh-grade students mostly in the deductive direction of scientific activity, and how the dialectic of education was played out in the classroom as teacher and students were engaged in the activity. Contains 29 references.…

Describes a study to determine whether preservice teachers with training in science process skill instruction can improve their knowledge of and ability with process skills as well as improve their ability to sequence process skills. (Author/SA)

The research reported in this study focuses on the design and evaluation of learning environments that support the teaching and learning of argumentation in a scientific context. The research took place over 2 years, between 1999 and 2001, in junior high schools in the greater London area. The research was conducted in two phases. In phase 1,…

Describes an investigation of preservice elementary teachers' ability to improve in proposing scientific problems for their pupils. (SA)