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…

High school biology teachers face many challenges as they teach evolution. State standards for evolution may provide support for sound evolution instruction. This study attempts to build upon previous work by investigating teachers' views of evolution standards and their evolution practices in a state where evolution standards have been…

Treating creationism as a controversial topic within the science and religion issue in the science classroom has been widely discussed in the recent literature. Some researchers have proposed that this topic is best addressed by focusing on sociocognitive conflict. To prepare new learning opportunities for this approach, it is necessary to know…

The oral arguments of 12th grade students while solving tasks related to evolution are examined. Two groups (N = 45), taught by the same teacher, were studied during a complete teaching sequence. The paper focuses on data from the last sessions, devoted to solving problems in small groups, problems related to different dimensions of the…

This qualitative study analyzed grade 12 biology students' answers to written extended-response questions that describe hypothetical scenarios of animals' evolution. We investigated whether these type of questions are suitable for students (n = 24) to express a meaningful understanding of evolutionary theory. Meaningful understanding is comprised…