The Framework for K-12 Science Education set an ambitious goal of broadening participation in science learning for all students. Meeting this vision will involve supporting teachers in making meaningful connections with the cultural and linguistic resources their students bring to school; in essence, developing pedagogies that frame these…

This study examined how five minoritized female pre-service teachers negotiated their border crossing from learning to teach science to science teaching for the first time (microteaching) within the context of an elementary science teaching methods course. Perspectives from the border crossing literature guided this study and helped in addressing…

'A lack of prior knowledge in the other discipline' is often given by geoscience instructors to explain why students struggle to apply knowledge from other disciplines to the Earth. We examine this assumption by considering the disciplinary crossing of buoyancy (physics) to isostasy (geoscience). We investigate the teachers' perspective through…

Kinetic energy is usually the entry point for the study of energy in physics and is often perceived as unproblematic. We present evidence, however, that some learners who seem to have accepted the concept, from elementary school students to college physics majors and in-service teachers, nevertheless do not consistently attribute kinetic energy to…

This inquiry sought to investigate the opportunities and potential challenges of engaging in a self-study approach as a strategy for enhancing professional growth during my teaching of the topic of evolutionary genetics to 24 twelfth-grade students. I had, for many years, experienced pedagogical deficits and shortcomings when teaching evolutionary…

Consensus was reached on seven core concepts of physiology using the Delphi method, including "integration," outlined by the descriptor "cells, tissues, organs, and organ systems interact to create and sustain life." This core concept was unpacked by a team of 3 Australian physiology educators into hierarchical levels,…

A concern about students' conceptual difficulties in organic chemistry prompted this study. It was found that prior knowledge from general chemistry was critical in organic chemistry, but what were some of the concepts that comprised that prior knowledge? Therefore an analysis of four years of organic chemistry quiz data was undertaken. Multiple…

This paper reports on a study aiming at examining the development of science process skills through the implementation of experiments in a science course which was performed in flipped classroom design. Flipped classroom model was implemented for a series of experimentation activities in a science classroom in which 38 science teacher candidates…

Teachers' values, beliefs, and self-confidence are critical components of decisions educators make every day. The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between secondary science teachers' epistemology and self-efficacy on science instructional practices and conceptualization of student research experiences rooted in the Next…

This study investigated the nature of the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) development among 22 prospective teachers enrolled in an elementary science methods course. The nature of prospective teachers' PCK development was investigated in relation to their experiences in planning, enacting, and reflecting upon a Physical science lesson. The…

This study aims to examine the thoughts of fourth-year pre-service science teachers about the nature of science. For this purpose, the study preferred the qualitative research method and phenomenology design. Participants consisted of nine pre-service science teachers. Participants wrote a self-evaluation report after the nature of the science…

According to constructivist theory, learning is a construction of new knowledge based on prior knowledge. As a consequence, science teachers are encouraged to take students' prior knowledge into account. It is evident in many cases that although students' prior knowledge is often not consistent with scientific knowledge, they may have some…

This research aimed to understand what physics and chemistry pre-service teachers learn within pedagogical content knowledge in a lesson study with the topic speed of sound, 8th grade. Participants were three pre-service teachers. This was a qualitative and interpretative study. Data were collected from participant observation, individual…

While it is well established that pedagogies purposefully linking subject matter to students' cultural contexts and prior knowledge can help students learn subject matter, little is known about practices for so doing in undergraduate biology courses enrolling substantial numbers of racially, culturally, and otherwise diverse students. This study…

Recent reforms in science education highlight the need for student-centred approaches to teaching in school curriculum policy in South Africa. Science teachers are required to move away from traditional teacher-centred practices which regard students as mere passive recipients of knowledge. In this study, we examine classroom talk for the type of…