In Australia, a significant number of students enrol in first-year university biology without the benefit of high school biology. In order to help students support each other, the authors of this paper (a central unit academic developer and a biology coordinator of first-year biology) created a classroom activity that facilitated the distribution…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs held by teacher candidates (TCs) regarding the integration of fictional literature into elementary science instruction. Data were collected in the forms of a Q sort completed by two sections of TCs as an in-class activity, demographics and background information…

This paper provides a systematic review of instruments that have the potential to measure the quality of project-based science and technology (S&T) learning environments in elementary school. To this end, a comprehensive literature search was undertaken for the large field of S&T learning environments. We conducted a horizontal bottom-up…

Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) observed in one topic is commonly understood not to be transferable to another topic. This study asked, what can then be transferred in the context of learning and acquiring PCK? The study firstly posits the existence of a generic pedagogical competence that is developed in pre-service teachers to pedagogically…

The National Curriculum Framework-2005 (NCF-2005) recommends that learning of children has to shift away from methods encouraging rote memory. This is possible only if children get an opportunity to explore the surroundings themselves. In this paper the researcher shares her experiences in the use of various innovative approaches in…

Problem Based Learning (PBL) makes use of real-life scenarios to stimulate students' prior knowledge and to provide a meaningful context that is also related to the student's future professional work. In this article, Paternity testing is presented using a PBL approach that involves a combination of classroom, laboratory, and out-of-class…

Making connections is always an important task for teachers. Science teachers are encouraged to connect new learning with students' prior knowledge, learning with student interests, learning with cultural experiences, and classroom activities across academic disciplines. Strategies that facilitate these connections help teachers enrich and enhance…

This study investigates conditions and factors that affect preservice teachers' decisions to use handheld computers in scientific investigations and explores aspects of student learning and classroom practices that would be affected by handheld-based science activities. A Handheld-Based Laboratory (HBL) was designed to model strategies for…

The concept of waves is fundamental due to its occurrence throughout the natural world. Because the concept occurs in so many places, students come to the classroom with prior knowledge, as well as misconceptions, about waves. Students have misconceptions about what is waving in a wave, what properties of the medium determine wave speed, and how…