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…

College biology courses commonly use diagrams to convey information. These visual representations are embedded in course materials with the expectation that students can comprehend and learn from them. Educational research, however, suggests that many students have difficulty understanding diagrams and the conventions (e.g., labels, arrows) they…

The purpose of this study was to explore grade eight students' views in terms of different scientific reasoning progress levels. To explore students' views, phenomenographic study was used. The qualitative analysis of students' interviews elicited three major themes of students' views about scientific reasoning progress levels: naïve, mixed, and…

Socioscientific issues, issues that center on the intersection between scientific and social problems in real-world contexts, are valuable tools to use in science instruction due to their association with gains in scientific literacy, argumentation skills, and content knowledge. However, due to their complex nature, crafting instruction using…

This article explores how Ms. Ford, a first-grade teacher, integrated literary tools to engage students in higher-level thinking and meaning making. Through the use of teacher talk, eliciting responses, asking for clarity, and expanding on student responses, she utilized discourse to support students in making meaning. Ms. Ford's first-grade…

As more concerns have been raised about withholding answers during science teaching, this article argues for a need to detach 'withholding answers' from 'hands-on' investigation tasks. The present study examined students' learning of light-related content through three conditions: 'hands-on' + no 'withholding' (hands-on only: HO), 'hands-on' +…

E-learning is playing a significant and increasing role in elementary science education. The purpose of this study was to explore how primary Grade 3 students constructed an understanding of seasons through a series of interactive e-learning activities. One class of Grade 3 students from one local primary school was invited to participate in this…

The purpose of this case study is to delve into the complexities of the early development of preservice chemistry teachers' science teaching orientations, knowledge of learners, knowledge of instructional strategies, and knowledge of assessment during a two-semester intervention designed to enhance their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for…

Because language provides the framework through which knowledge is constructed, it is crucial to consider the ways in which students with limited English proficiencies are able to express their understanding. English language learners (ELLs) make up a significant portion of the student body in the education system and represent many ethnic and…

In South Africa, foundation programmes are a well-established alternative access route to tertiary science study for educationally disadvantaged students. Student access to, and performance in, one such foundation programme has been researched by the authors seeking opportunities to improve student retention. The biology module in particular has…

In an experimental study (N = 209), the authors compared the effects of exposure to typical middle-school written science content when presented in the context of the scientific discovery narrative and when presented in a more traditional nonnarrative format on 7th and 8th grade students in the United States. The development of texts was…

It has been argued that learning science may be complicated, and even compromised, when students hold worldviews that may seem at odds with what is presented in science lessons. In particular, in some parts of the world, there has been considerable concern that students from particular religious backgrounds may reject some science teaching if…

This study is an investigation into the science literacy of college genetics students who were given a modified curriculum to address specific teaching and learning problems from a previous class. This study arose out of an interest by the professor and researcher to determine how well students in the class Human Genetics in the 21st Century…

In this paper we explore the relationship between learning gains, measured through pre-assessment and post-assessment, and engagement in scientific argumentation. In order to do so, this paper examines group discourse and individual learning during the implementation of NASA Classroom of the Future's BioBLAST![R] (BB) software program in a high…

Learning using primary literature may be a way of developing a capacity for scientific ways of thinking among students. Since reading research articles is a difficult task for novices, we examined the possible benefits of learning using primary literature versus secondary literature, particularly with respect to their influence on the creation and…