Many chemists want to be effective teachers but have little background in psychology or education on which to build successful practices. The primary audience for this book is chemistry teachers at the secondary and tertiary levels, and its purpose is to encourage readers to construct a new understanding of how their students learn. This book is…

Linking home and school, this book presents over 100 activities for grades K-3 that utilize things at parents' fingertips which will enhance their children's learning. Each low-maintenance, high-interest activity in the book teaches a specific skill and integrates math, science, social studies, and language arts so that learning is purposeful and…

A study examined the relationship between two variable sets: (1) epistemological beliefs (Quick Learning, Simple-Certain Knowledge, and Innate Ability) and performance goals; and (2) conceptual understanding and application reasoning in conceptual change learning. In addition, effects of different kinds of prior knowledge on conceptual change…

Students in three levels of high-school physics classes (advanced, regular, and general) were studied as they learned concepts about gravity, balanced forces, and projectile motion to examine the effect of text and instructional techniques, such as prediction and labs, on learning. Reading appeared to be an effective influence on learning…

The purpose of this study was to investigate and describe selected instructional strategies (traditional and constructivist) and grouping practices (homogeneous and heterogeneous) on conceptual understanding and critical thinking skills in biology classrooms in three high schools. The context of the study was the teaching and learning of plant…

Because of the limitations of traditional text-based instruction, it has been recommended that teachers use additional resources to enliven their instruction and make it relevant to students' lives. Literature can serve as a segue into the sometimes difficult and scary world of science. Reasons for integration are explained and supported by…

The activities in this guide (for grades 2-4) transport students to the sandy shore, one of the most fascinating ecosystems on the planet. At this ecological juncture a multiplicity of life forms find ways to survive, thrive, and interact with each other. Using a wide variety of learning formats, students explore and deepen their understanding of…

This guide is one of a set of 10 science guides, each covering a separate grade in Manitoba, together covering kindergarten through grade 9. The guides have been designed to provide a framework for building scientific concepts and developing the learning of process skills. They replace an earlier set of guides dated 1979. Each guide is essentially…

Increasing attention is being paid today to the place of science in general education at the preprimary, primary, and secondary levels. Educational authorities and specialists in many countries throughout the world agree about the important role that science should and can play in the context of education, but specific aims and objectives must be…

This project manual is written for 4-H member children who are in the fifth grade or older. This project is designed to familiarize members with the scientific history concerning the discovery and application of electric energy through the 1800's. Readers can conduct experiments similar to the ones performed by the scientists and inventors of that…

This paper addresses the role experiments can play in concept development. The study used a qualitative phenomenography research methodology. The interactions of one student with an instructor in a series of eight sessions on electric circuits is reported. The first three session focused on diagnosing the students' prior conceptions of electric…

This paper describes the role of analogy in science instruction and presents new research on the Teaching-With-Analogies model. After an introductory section, the paper discuses learning science meaningfully, including constructing relations, strategies for learning conceptual relations, the definition of analogy, effectiveness of analogies, and…

Problems concerning conceptual change from existing knowledge (accumulated from everyday experiences or earlier teaching) to new scientific knowledge concerning natural phenomena are fundamentally the same for Western and non-Western students. However, difficulties experienced by non-Western students are magnified by factors such as their cultural…

Since their introduction into schools, educators have tried to utilize computers in classes in order to make difficult topics more comprehensible. Chemistry educators, when faced with the task of teaching a topic that cannot be taught through experiments in a laboratory, resort to computers to help students visualize difficult concepts and…

This study aims to better understand the construction of the meaning of physics concepts in mechanics during a teaching sequence at the upper secondary school level. In the teaching sessions, students were introduced to the concepts of interaction and force. During this teaching sequence the models called "interactions" and "laws of…