Mole, molar mass and the Avogadro number are used constantly to measure the amount of substance in chemical changes. However, students have difficulty in understanding these concepts because they are not familiar with measuring very small amounts of matter that cannot be seen and weighed in daily life, like atoms. The mole concept was developed to…

This paper presents the design and initial learning research with the MMM modeling platform, seeking to advance middle school students' learning through constructing computational models of complex physical and chemical systems. A complexity-based structure of an MMM interface is introduced. It suggests that a complex system can be described and…

Traditional school laboratory exercises on a system of moving objects connected by strings involve deriving expressions for the system acceleration, a = (?F)/m, and sketching a graph of acceleration vs. force. While being in the form of rational functions, these expressions present great opportunities for broadening the scope of the analysis by…

In this article, David Lewin examines the processes of educational representation, simplification, and selection, proposing the term "pedagogical reduction" in order to clarify the role these processes play within pedagogy. Although this term is virtually unknown among Anglo-American educational theorists, it reflects a substantial…

Abilities in scientific thinking and reasoning have been emphasized as core areas of initiatives, such as the Next Generation Science Standards or the College Board Standards for College Success in Science, which focus on the skills the future will demand of today's students. Although there is rich literature on studies of how these abilities…

Preliminary research shows promise for the use of supported electronic text (eText) combined with explicit instruction in facilitating comprehension for students with intellectual disability. Researchers used a multiple probe across participants design to evaluate effects of supported eText including explicit instruction on measures of vocabulary,…

Research examining the relationship between teachers' beliefs and classroom practice has been on the rise. While several researchers (Buehl & Beck, 2015; Fang, 1996; Pajares, 1992) have examined the relationship between teachers' beliefs and practice, there is not one agreed upon conclusion. This dissertation, presented as two studies, seeks…

This paper presents protests from academically successful students who privately conveyed to the researchers their feelings of personal discontent with schools. The criterion to select this "sample" was that these students, dissatisfied with school but having good marks, would reveal what others, academically less successful, could not…

Instruction in academic core content provides students with moderate to severe disabilities a full educational opportunity that promotes current and future options in the community and can complement acquisition of daily living skills. However, high school teachers face many challenges in balancing instructional priorities given the mission to…

This paper explores strategies for teachers to work with science conceptions, both those consistent and those inconsistent with western science understanding. It emphasises the value of teachers checking their own and their students' prior understanding of concepts to be learnt. A past approach of educators has been to replace old beliefs with new…

The current study extends the mand-for-information literature by examining a method to teach mand-for-information frames, targeting 2 frames for the "How?" mand ("How do I?" and "How many?"). Using separate behavior chains to target the 2 frames, we taught 3 children with autism to emit mands for information with 1…

Broad instructional methods like "interactive engagement" have been shown to be effective, but such general characterization provides little guidance on the details of how to structure instructional materials. In this study, we seek instructional specificity by comparing two ways of using an analogy to learn a target physical principle:…

Science content is one area of general curriculum access that needs more investigation. Explicit instruction is effective for teaching students with high incidence disabilities a variety of skills, including science content. In this study, we taught three elementary aged students with autism spectrum disorder to acquire science descriptors (e.g.,…

In scientific arguments, claims must have meaning that extends beyond the immediate circumstances of an investigation. That is, claims must be generalised in some way. Therefore, teachers facilitating classroom argumentation must be prepared to support students' efforts to construct or criticise generalised claims. However, widely used…

National reports reveal one third of American fourth graders read below basic level on measures of comprehension. One critical component of comprehension is fluency: rapid, accurate, expressive reading with automaticity and prosody. Many fluency studies and classroom interventions focus only on reading rate, but this alone is not sufficient. This…