[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Astronomy Education Research.] We examined teachers' spatial-scientific reasoning and the alternative conceptions they held regarding Earth-space content. While participating in a professional development (PD) workshop, teachers engaged in an integrated mathematics and science project-based unit…

Formative assessment probes are effective tools for uncovering students' ideas about the various concepts they encounter when learning science. They are used to build a bridge from where the student is in his or her thinking to where he or she needs to be in order to construct and understand the scientific explanation for observed phenomena.…

More than 400 educators in the Miami-Dade County, Florida, school system take part in a professional-development and curriculum program that attempts to build students' science knowledge while also helping them master English. Developed by researchers at the University of Miami, the Promoting Science among English Language Learners program…

Content knowledge and pedagogical practices are of particular concern to middle school science instructors teaching density. First introduced in elementary grades with the ideas of floating and sinking, density taught in middle school is geared toward understanding through the use of mathematical formulas. Using a lesson-plan study design, the…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of a summer science camp teaching experience on preservice elementary teachers' science teaching efficacy, science content knowledge, and understanding of the nature of science. Master's degree students enrolled in the elementary Fairfax Partnership Schools (FPS, n = 21) cohort served as the…

The specialist knowledge and skills of science teachers is far too easily overlooked and undervalued, due, in part, to the tacit nature of the knowledge that underpins expert science teachers' practice. For science teachers to better recognize, describe, and share their professional knowledge there is a need to develop new and meaningful ways…

Recent reforms in science education call for curricula designed to support students' construction of knowledge through inquiry. Teachers need to learn new methods and content to enact reform-based curriculum, and educative materials designed to address teacher as well as student learning are one vehicle for this type of reform. This paper…