In this article, the authors explore the question, "Does the Moon spin?", and show how the question is investigated. They emphasise the importance of the process by which people work out what they know, by "learning from the inside out." They stress that those involved in science education have to challenge current conceptions and ideas, making…

For ten days in August 2006, Pluto was rarely out of the news as members of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) deliberated on its planetary status. For the members of the "News in Science Education" group, based at Queen's University, Belfast, this offered a great opportunity for educators to explore a number of interesting and…

In this work, our goal is to examine the attitude of the Greek scientific community towards Quantum Mechanics and establish the history of teaching of this theory in Greece. We have examined Physics textbooks written by professors of the University of Athens, as well as records of public speeches, university yearbooks from 1923 to 1970, articles…

In this study, the effectiveness of concept cartoons in diagnosing and overcoming students' misconceptions related to photosynthesis subject was examined. Firstly, the literature has been thoroughly examined and misconceptions about photosynthesis subject have been listed and then grouped. Concept cartoons related to these groups have been…

Students attending a lecture usually have a wide range of prior knowledge about the topic in question. Rather than seeing this as a problem, lecturers can take advantage of such differences. This article shows how students' misconceptions about old age were used to inform a lecture on the topic. Prior knowledge can thus be used to aid teaching and…

The New Zealand technology curriculum requires children to solve problems to meet people's needs. So who are these people? Are they the users of the product, people who are affected by the product or someone else? This article investigates the confusion and limitations that exists in the New Zealand curriculum about the terms society, community,…

The author discusses a line of research examining the acquisition, organization, and use of knowledge associated with conceptual change in which she is engaged at the University of Maryland. It builds on foundational research by scholars in science, mathematics, and reading education as well as in motor learning and physical education pedagogy,…

For the past decade, attention has been drawn to a perceived shortage of school leadership applicants. Establishing an accurate perception of the shortage issue, however, is complex. One challenge with the perception of the shortage is the connection made between quality and shortage. The interpretation of quality is often times determined by a…

In an earlier issue of "ACT" (Number 2, 2005), Dr. Rhoda Bernard has presented a call for reframing music teacher education. Based on his experience as a leader of a Swedish longitudinal project about music teacher socialization since the late 1980s, the author discusses some problems with her call. In this article, he elucidates Bernard's use of…

This study investigates the impact of Social Foundations class on the beliefs of elementary and secondary education majors. Over the course of 3 years, 99 students responded to pre-and postsurveys, using a 5-point Likert-type scale to express their level of agreement to 12 statements about instruction, learning, management, teacher training, and…

In a response to comments by Rodney Evans on an earlier "Educational Researcher" (ER) article that the author cowrote with three colleagues at The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the author shows that Evans' critique is based largely on a misreading or misrepresentation of their argument, its rationale, and associated…

This paper introduces a theory about the role of language in learning physics. The theory is developed in the context of physics students and physicists talking and writing about the subject of quantum mechanics. We found that physicists' language encodes different varieties of analogical models through the use of grammar and conceptual metaphor.…

Physics is perceived by many students to be a difficult subject, and misconceptions about it are quite common not only among school students but also among undergraduates and pre-service postgraduate science teachers. In teaching the topic of gas pressure to primary student teachers studying in the Bachelor of Education programme at my institute,…

As with many science fiction works, the "Star Trek" franchise uses allegory to address contemporary social issues. Taking a liberal humanistic stance, it addresses race and racism using aliens as allegorical stand-ins for humanity. However, the producers of the "Star Trek" franchise were inadvertently perpetuating the racism they were advocating…

This report argues that there exists a pervasive tendency for analogies to contribute to the development of entrenched misconceptions in the form of reducing complex new knowledge to the core of a source analogy. The report presents a taxonomy of ways that simple analogy induces conceptual error and an alternative approach involving integrated…