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…

Computational thinking (CT) is a way of making sense of the natural world and problem solving with computer science concepts and skills. Although CT and science integrations have been called for in the literature, empirical investigations of such integrations are lacking. Prior work in natural selection education indicates students struggle to…

The purpose of this study was primarily to explore high school students' cognitive structures and to identify their learning difficulties on ethanoic acid through the flow map method. The subjects of this study were 30 grade 1 students from Dong Yuan Road Senior High School in Xi'an, China. The interviews were conducted a week after the students…

It is fascinating to listen to middle school students talk about food for plants and animals and how that food is used. Some students describe ideas that are essentially correct. Some comments suggest that students are familiar with the content, but their understanding is incomplete or includes inaccuracies. Finally, some students have little…

In this study, students' understanding of chemical changes was investigated in relation to four individual differences, related to logical thinking, field dependence/independence, convergence and divergence thinking. The study took place in Greece with the participation of students (n = 374) from three grades (8th, 10th and 12th grades) of…

This study investigates a project-based learning (PBL) approach to teaching evolution to inform efforts in teacher preparation. Data analysis of a secondary biology educator teaching evolution through a PBL approach illuminated: (1) active student voice, which allowed students to reflect on their positioning on evolution and consider multiple…

This article explores 11- to 16-year-old students' explanations for phenomena commonly studied in school chemistry from an inclusive cognitive resources or knowledge-in-pieces perspective that considers that student utterances may reflect the activation of knowledge elements at a range of levels of explicitness. We report 5 themes in student…

Although misconceptions in science have been established in interview studies, their role during the learning process is poorly examined. In this paper, we use results from a classroom study to analyze to what extent nonscientific ideas in electrochemistry that students report in interviews enter into their learning in a more authentic setting. We…

Science classes are full of abstract or challenging concepts that are easier to understand if an analogy is used to illustrate the points. Effective analogies motivate students, clarify students' thinking, help students overcome misconceptions, and give students ways to visualize abstract concepts. When they are used appropriately, analogies can…

The traditional order in which science courses are taught in U.S. high schools is biology, chemistry, physics. The physics course usually is regarded as very difficult because it requires both high-level mathematical skills and high-level thinking skills; it is taught in the final year of high school to provide time for students to develop the…

Discussed are the implications of the three main stages of conceptual change--"awareness, disequilibrium, and reformulating"--on misconceptions of grade 10 students in Israel. The difficulties and problems encountered with the procedure are included. (KR)

Discussed is a constructivist model of science learning and its possible use in the treatment of science misconceptions. Science learning as conceptual and methodological change is described. (KR)

Much of the focus in science education has been on the theoretical constructs and practical implications of conceptual change. History of science, cognitive theory, and alternative conceptions have been used as backdrops for the study of the child's conceptual movement away from naive beliefs about scientific phenomena. In this study, conceptual…

The candle burning experiment is usually conducted in lower secondary classes to prove the (about) 20% oxygen in air. The aim of this paper is to show that teachers misinterpret the results of the experiment to satisfy the objectives of teaching this experiment. However, when the results of this experiment are interpreted correctly, the objectives…

Discussed is the idea that models should be taught by emphasizing limitations rather than focusing on their generality. Two examples of gas behavior models are included--the kinetic and static models. (KR)