For thousands of years, people have used music to transfer information and narrate stories. The musical structure, consisting of words set to melodies in rhythmic patterns, made the content easier to remember. Researchers have investigated the long- and short-term effects of song on memory and found that music aided in the recall of information.…

Despite a decline in popularity within US society, posters continue to hold a prominent place within middle and high school science classrooms. Teachers' demand is satisfied by governmental and non-profit science organizations that produce and disseminate posters as tangible products resulting from their research, and instruments to communicate…

The need for a revised curriculum within the life sciences has been well-established. One strategy to improve student preparation in the life sciences is to redesign introductory courses like biology, chemistry, and physics so that they better reflect their disciplinary interdependence. We describe a medically relevant, context-based approach to…

Reform based curriculum offer a promising avenue to support greater student achievement in science. Yet teachers frequently adapt innovative curriculum when they use them in their own classrooms. In this study, we examine how 19 teachers adapted an inquiry-oriented middle school science curriculum. Specifically, we investigate how teachers'…

The study analyses the extent to which the sociological message transmitted by the teachers' pedagogic practice recontextualizes the official pedagogic discourse of the natural sciences curriculum for a Portuguese middle school. Theoretically, the study is based on theories of psychology (e.g. Vygotsky), epistemology (e.g. Ziman) and sociology,…

Formative assessment, assessment used to inform subsequent learning, can have a powerful positive impact on student achievement, but little empirical work has been conducted to investigate the role of teachers' knowledge in its practice. This study investigated reciprocal relations between elementary science teachers' formative assessment…

This study aimed to examine whether the relationships among family resources, school climate, learning participation, science attitude, and science achievement are different between primary school students and junior high school students within one educational system. The subjects included 4,181 Grade 4 students and 5,074 Grade 8 students who…

This study explored the nature of the integration of the five components of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK): (a) Orientations toward Teaching Science, (b) Knowledge of Student Understanding, (c) Knowledge of Instructional Strategies and Representations, (d) Knowledge of Science Curriculum, and (e) Knowledge of Assessment of Science Learning.…

Although the use of portfolios to assess student performance in K-12 science classrooms and to monitor the training of preservice science teachers is increasingly common, their implementation in undergraduate science courses is still limited. The work presented here represents one in-depth example of the integration of portfolio assessment into…

Advancements in information and communications technology and the rapid expansion of the Internet have changed the nature and the mode of the presentation and delivery of teaching and learning resources. This paper discusses the results of a study aimed at investigating how five teachers planned to integrate online resources in their teaching of…

In this article, the author discusses why the history of science should be included in the science curriculum in schools. He also presents some opportunities that can come out of using historical contexts, and findings from a study assessing the place of history of science in readily available textbooks.

Project-based science curricula can improve students' usable or meaningful understanding of the science content underlying a project. However, such curricula designed around "performances" wherein students design or make something do not always do this. We researched ways to design performance project-based science curricula (pPBSc) to better…

This paper reviews the extent to which contemporary concerns over the recruitment, training and retention of scientists have persisted among science education policy-makers. Drawing upon key government reports that have been commissioned in order to review the position of science education and training over the last 90 years, we consider the…

For over 400 years, Wabankaki children of Maine and eastern Canada have been assimilated into schools established by European immigrants. Low high school graduation rates, poor achievement outcomes, and overrepresentation of students in special education reveal an "invisible crisis" that threatens the survival of the indigenous culture…

This is a collective case study seeking to develop detailed descriptions of how programming an agent-based simulation influences a group of 8th grade students' model-based inquiry (MBI) by examining students' agent-based programmable modeling (ABPM) processes and the learning outcomes. The context of the present study was a biology unit on…