This study aimed to investigate whether the presence (when using physical manipulatives [PMs]) or absence (when using virtual manipulatives [VMs]) of haptic sensory feedback (i.e., open-ended haptic manipulation of physical materials with the use of the hands) during experimentation can impact preschoolers' conceptual understanding of concepts…

As the vision in "A Framework for K-12 Science Education" and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) takes hold in schools and classrooms, there is an urgent need for teacher professional development (PD) programs that align with NGSS-designed curriculum materials and address the unique strengths and needs of diverse student…

This qualitative case study delved into students' understanding and positioning while they participated in solving an authentic, conceptually-based problem in a high-school chemistry class. Verbal and nonverbal cues, particularly gestures, offered broader awareness of students' engagement in sensemaking during the learning experience. The…

Equity in education has been conceptualized in various ways, which provides different affordances and constraints for policy, research, and teaching decisions. Regarding the latter, there is a dearth of research on how postsecondary science faculty conceptualize equity and whether and how their understandings of equity may be informing their…

The use of group drawing to promote student-generated representation is a common instructional strategy as it combines the benefits of using visual representation and collaborative talk. Although the affordances of group drawing have increasingly been emphasized in science education, few studies have investigated how drawing as a visual mode…

Science achievements of individuals play a crucial role when students aim to pursue highly demanded occupations and advanced academic degrees. Enhancing science attainment is crucial in improving the effectiveness of science education. This study investigates the impact of home educational resources, students' attitudes toward learning,…

Research suggests that translanguaging can be transformative for teaching and learning by making students' diverse linguistic resources a meaningful part of classroom discourse. Building on this study, researchers have explored how translanguaging practices can support learning in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), primarily…

Instructional explanations are sometimes viewed as part of a nonconstructivist, solely teacher-centered learning environment, leading to the perception that they are ineffective or inappropriate for teaching science. Consequently, teacher education programmes seldom focus on preparing teachers to explain scientific concepts effectively.…

In this paper, we outline how science teachers might engage in the work of creating educational equity. While acknowledging the historical inherent inequities associated with issues of access, opportunities to engage in science learning for individuals of marginalized identities (e.g., BIPOC individuals and women), and achievement, we broaden this…

Science education reform efforts have emphasized the incorporation of more authentic and meaningful scientific practices into formal learning environments. With this focus on practices, such as scientific modeling, a powerful tool for sense-making and reasoning, comes a need to observe and understand if and how it is actually occurring,…

The use of scientific modeling has been shown to be highly effective in the learning of science content in multiple disciplines for non-English Learners (EL). However, the benefits of using this pedagogy with ELs have not been heavily explored. This article discusses the use of modeling-based evolution and population ecology pedagogical units in a…

Sensemaking has been advocated as a core practice of science education to support students in constructing their own understanding through a prolonged trajectory. However, the field lacks a discussion of teaching strategies that can better support students as they develop in the trajectory of sensemaking, which includes four phases: initial…

This study contributes to discussions on facilitating students' sense-making in science by analyzing the utterances of high-achieving students in dialogues during practical work and identifying characteristics of their language use and learning processes. The context of the study is a general science course at an upper secondary school in Norway.…

Science educators are integrating more and more computational thinking (CT) activities into their curricula. Proponents of CT offer two motivations: familiarizing students with a realistic depiction of the computational nature of modern scientific practices and encouraging more students from underrepresented backgrounds to pursue careers in…

The increasing attention in science education reform documents to language and literacy, coupled with the growing linguistic diversity of United States classrooms, means that science teacher educators and researchers are facing an important task of preparing secondary science preservice teachers (PSTs) to teach a language- and literacy-integrated…