To potentially engage students in "doing organic chemistry", organic chemistry courses should foreground weaving together structure- and energy-related ideas to construct causal accounts for phenomena. Here, we investigate whether enrolling in an organic chemistry course that places substantial emphasis ([approximately]50% of total…

This extensively updated teaching resource provides over 100 engaging, full-color visuals with explanations of how they can be used to stimulate mathematics learning, to explain mathematical concepts, and to assess students' mathematical understanding in grades K-8. Readers are provided with a strong mathematical background, downloadable copies of…

Student learning in simple electric circuits has been an important area in physics education research. This study builds off a previous investigation that applied the conceptual framework model to examine knowledge integration in student learning of simple electric circuits and developed a multiple-choice concept test for assessing knowledge…

The work in this dissertation is presented in two parts. The first part (Chapters 3 and 4) details work relating to students' explanations of reaction mechanisms in organic chemistry. The second part (Chapters 5 and 6) details work relating to the evaluating the uptake of research-based instructional practices in introductory chemistry,…

Science and engineering practices (SEPs) and crosscutting concepts (CCs) constitute a significant part of "A Framework for K-12 Science Education" (NRC 2012). As teachers, the role of the authors is to highlight the pivotal role that both scientific knowledge and the practices used to generate knowledge play in learning. This article…

This paper presents the experimental work developed to measure the learning process through concept map analysis. The development of a concept map is requested by the students for each chapter or theme of the subject. As a result, maps from engineering courses have been analyzed. The measurements carried out consider several parameters, such as…

A well-designed assessment construct is critical for improving all aspects of quality education and validating the achievement of educational reform. The global prevalence of how teachers communicate learning intentions (LIs) and success criteria (SC) has been of great concern, particularly in the South African context. This study investigates how…

This case study examined teachers' on-the-fly formative assessment conversations, that is, how teachers collect information from students' thinking and use that information to support their learning during teacher-student interactions. Previous studies have typically analysed whole-class discussions on the level of speaking turns, and have…

We describe here lessons learned in designing an early algebra curriculum to measure early algebra's impact on children's algebra readiness for middle grades. The curriculum was developed to supplement regular mathematics instruction in Grades K-5. Lessons learned centered around the importance of several key factors, including using conceptual…

This research reports the implementation of an evaluation instrument of the slope concept in high school students. The design of this study was based on four dimensions: Skills, Properties, Uses and Representations (SPUR model; Thompson & Kaur, 2011) and on three conceptualizations: constant ratio, behavior indicator and trigonometric…

Architectural education encompasses a multidisciplinary curriculum including design, theory, history, technology, environmental considerations, urban planning, social aspects, and professional practice. This study aims to investigate the extent to which students can effectively integrate structural concepts into architectural design. This…

We discuss an implementation of the research-based Pathways precalculus curriculum in a large-lecture format supported by recitations, clickers, and online homework. We describe our approach to adapting the implementation of Pathways precalculus from a small class to a large lecture instructional format. We report data on student learning and…

In this paper, the SOLO taxonomy is used to identify different levels of student understanding of the statistical concepts associated with sampling distribution. This study was part of a research project investigating students' conceptual understanding of concepts of hypothesis testing taught with the support of simulation learning activities. The…

This study investigated the noticing of teachers who teach mathematics at different grade levels in the context of lesson study. The study specifically focused on teachers' noticing during the planning phase of the lesson. For this, the lesson planning phase of a group of four teachers consisting of kindergarten and primary school 1st grade…

Many school psychologists work in schools that have low proficiency rates on the year-end test of mathematics, which is concerning because math proficiency is a powerful indicator of long-term academic success. Addressing math instructional problems is not easy work. One reason the authors examine is that the work is so challenging for school…