Integrating the nature of science (NOS) into textbooks is one of the challenges in science curricula. This case study assessed the issue based on a sample of high school biology textbooks in Mainland China. We quantitatively compared changes in the extent, quality, and distribution of NOS representations between 2004 and 2019 editions. Three main…

We explored the impact a new quantitative biology course for biology majors had on their ability and confidence to utilize hypothesis testing. Students currently in the quantitative biology course and the first cohort of students who took the course (currently seniors) were surveyed on ability and confidence regarding four types of hypothesis…

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) require teachers to think very carefully about the structure of lessons, which content must be taught to allow students to achieve NGSS expectations, and how content is delivered. With the standards' focus on three-dimensional learning and the use of relevant phenomena, most teachers are urged to make…

Recent reform efforts have been adopted in the United States to reimagine student learning in science. Historical reform efforts have required teacher buy-in necessary for substantive change to occur. Using a mixed-method methodology, chemistry teacher progress in implementing the "Next Generation Science Standards" in Illinois and views…

I conducted a set of four studies to catalogue and examine course elements, including active learning strategies and evidence-based teaching practices, and their influence on student experiences and performance in college biology classes. In the first study, I defined the term "active learning" and catalogued the 300[plus] strategies…

In the socioscientific issues (SSI) classroom, students need to cross the border between the subcultures of science (i.e., school science vs. everyday science). Traditional school contexts tend to present science as positivistic knowledge and unshakable truth unaffected by sociocultural factors. In contrast, everyday science, including SSI, is…

Innovative and contemporary methods have established "digital mode of chemistry learning" as a known medium in the pre-COVID era. Developing countries, however, had less exposure and reliance on digital platforms, while the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the digital translation from conventional classroom setup, making it a mandate…

Recent science education reform initiatives suggest that learning in science should be organized on the basis of scientists' actual practices including the development and use of models. In line with this, the current study adapted three types of modeling practices to teach two Korean 6th grade science classes the causes of the Earth's seasons.…

Research from the fields of science representation, genre pedagogy and disciplinary literacy for adolescents indicates that achievement for students, including those from linguistically diverse backgrounds, will improve if they engage with the meaning-making conventions of disciplinary texts, but there is no current agreement on the nature of…

The term 'experiment' is used in different ways to mean different things in school science. This study examines the meanings of 'experiment' and how they have changed in the intended chemistry curriculum (ICC) in China since the early 1950s. A mixed methodology was adopted to analyse the 11 ICC documents from a socio-historical perspective. The…

Despite the number of university students who take courses in multiple science disciplines, little is known about how they connect concepts between disciplines. Energy is a concept that underlies all scientific phenomena and, as such, provides an appropriate context in which to investigate student connections and misconnections across disciplines.…

The "Next Generation Science Standards" and other educational reforms support the formation of deep connections across the STEM disciplines. Integrated STEM is considered as a best practice by the educational communities of the disparate disciplines. However, the integration of non-STEM disciplines is understudied and generally limited…

Our main interest in this article is to explore whether Swedish teachers changed their teaching and assessment practices in relation to the new national tests in science education that were introduced 2009. Data was collected using a web-distributed questionnaire, which was answered by 407 teachers. The concept of teaching traditions is used to…

This paper arises from research undertaken by educational semioticians and science educators investigating the use of student generated digital artefacts as assessment tasks in pre-service science teacher education. Part of a broader shift toward student-generated media in tertiary science, the use of such tasks is driven by the need to deepen…

Climate change and the resulting and related environmental and humanitarian outcomes are some of the fundamental challenges of the 21st century. Green chemistry, a relatively recent addition to the chemistry family, aims to reframe chemistry so that chemistry ethically and responsibly attends to its own environmental and human health impacts and…