While the multimodal nature of the languages of science is now broadly recognised, the role of affect and aesthetics in these languages, and the potential for this aesthetic focus to add to these languages, has tended to be ignored. Research into these languages has mainly focused on a codification of their functions, an approach to which…

General Chemistry serves virtually all STEM students. It has been accused of covering content in a "mile wide and inch deep" fashion. This has made it very difficult to assess, where chemistry educators have relied on assessments of specific topics. Assessing across all these different topics requires introducing many different chemical…

Instructors of introductory college physics courses are in a unique position to explain the physics of skateboarding and its associated risks. A field trip to a skate park to explore the law of conservation of energy and measure the impact forces can enhance student analytical thinking skills and their appreciation of physics in everyday life.…

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of argumentation over current teaching approach on scientific epistemological beliefs and 21st century skills of seventh grade students. This is a quasi-experimental design with pre-test and post-test control group. The sample of the study was composed of 79 seventh grade students (38 experimental; 41…

A wide array of conceptual change strategies attempted to address students' persistent alternative conceptions, yet there remained ubiquitous struggles of teachers teaching abstract and highly contentious science concepts. This study investigated the effectiveness of the novel Conceptual Change Framework of Instruction (CCFI) in teaching eclipses…

The difference between students' ideas and scientific conceptions, is called misconceptions. Physics learning needs to be designed by teachers to eradicate misconceptions. This paper provides a review of 72 international journal articles on diagnosis methods, causes, and ways of remediating misconceptions that have been published between…

The Wiggers diagram showing simultaneous events of the cardiac cycle in composite graphs is one of the most intimidating figures students encounter in their study of physiology. This paper describes a discovery learning activity that walks students through the construction of the Wiggers diagram by focusing on the core concepts of blood flow down…

Children are very curious about the world around them. You may find them peering at tadpoles in a pond, counting ants on a log, or wondering about the stars, the sun, and the moon. I have been asked many times: Is the moon really made of cheese? Do astronauts live on the moon? Why does the moon look different every time I look up? Introducing…

According to the National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education (2018), only 16% of the elementary teachers surveyed reported including hands-on activities in all or most of their lessons. Strategies that engage students in hands-on investigations help improve student achievement (Minner, Levy, and Century 2010) and provide students with a…

In this essay from a teacher in Argentina, Valeria Vincent describes how she employed Multiple Literacies in Project-based Learning (MLPBL) (Krajcik, Palincsar, and Miller 2015). ML-PBL, an open education free resource, has three design principles that support teacher and student learning and satisfaction. ML-PBL builds on teacher ingenuity and…

When students were exposed to cognitive conflict and 5E teaching models, this study looked at the impact of cognitive ability on their conceptual change in the particulate nature of matter in physics. With a sample of 195 first-year upper secondary school students, the study used a quasi-experimental design with non-equivalent groups. The data…

Student difficulties with making sense of graphs in physics have been thoroughly reported. In the study of one-dimensional waves, the issue is even trickier since the amplitude is a function of two variables (position and time). In this work, we investigate students' reasoning and difficulties with interpreting the graphical representation of the…

The Force Concept Inventory (FCI) is a popular multiple-choice instrument used to measure a student's conceptual understanding of Newtonian mechanics. Recently, a network analytic technique called module analysis has been used to identify responses to the FCI and other conceptual instruments that are preferentially selected together by students;…

Across science disciplines, light is a common tool for measuring, characterizing, and catalysing molecules and molecular processes. Despite the ubiquity of light-based tools, little research has been done to investigate how students understand light and light-matter interactions (LMI). This topic is typically first introduced in first-year…

A common task when problem solving in quantum mechanics, including in a spins-first curriculum, involves changing the basis of a given state. Our research in undergraduate quantum mechanics courses at three institutions explores student thinking about basis, basis expansion coefficients, and change of basis in the context of spin-½ systems. Our…