Fiona was a 14-year-old 7th-grader whose academic history, frequent behavior problems, and low levels of academic engagement put her at-risk for academic failure. This study's purpose was to examine the effectiveness of a systematic process for identifying the function of her problem behaviors and designing interventions that directly addressed…

Using a functional view of language and drawing on extensive classroom data, this article examines a high school science class to see how language was used to connect theory and practice in science register. The article tracks the teaching/learning paths from the introduction to the science topic and teaching of the theory (e.g., technical terms)…

Inquiry learning is student-based exploration of an authentic problem using the processes and tools of the discipline. Often inquiry learning is presented in a fashion that mirrors the scientific method, proceeding from identification of a problem to reporting of findings. In post-secondary settings, these scientific-method inquiry exercises…

The American Astronomical Society has recently developed an ambitious set of goals for introductory astronomy courses. How well does an introductory astronomy course based firmly on these goals actually do? In this article, an education student enrolled in such a class and the professor who taught it present an unvarnished analysis of one course…

Rapid advancements in hardware, software, and connectivity are helping to shorten the times needed to develop computer simulations for science education. These advancements, however, have not been accompanied by corresponding theories of how best to design and use these technologies for teaching, learning, and testing. Such design frameworks…

Over the past decade, apoptosis has emerged as an important field of study central to ongoing research in many diverse fields, from developmental biology to cancer research. Apoptosis proceeds by a highly coordinated series of events that includes enzyme activation, DNA fragmentation, and alterations in plasma membrane permeability. The detection…

A tool for teaching bioinformatics concepts to information systems majors is described. Biological data are available from numerous sources and a good knowledge of biology is needed to understand much of these data. As the subject of bioinformatics gains popularity among computer and information science course offerings, it will become essential…

One approach to providing collaborative opportunities for students of biology is cooperative learning, a theoretically grounded and well-researched approach in education that can increase students' learning of subject matter and improve their attitudes toward both academics in general and the subject matter specifically. This article presents an…

The problem examined in this study deals with students' attitude toward physics among the freshmen and sophomore students who were taking first introductory physics course. In the study there were 176 students, and they were chosen sample of convenience from Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Florida. 125 subjects were male students, and…

Since the recommendation of biology (or natural history, as it used to be called) in 1893 as part of the high school science curriculum, biology was considered a descriptive subject. In the late 1890s biology consisted of zoology, botany, and physiology. The group that decided on the high school science course configuration was the Committee of…

There is accumulating evidence that animations aid learning of dynamic concepts in cell biology. However, existing animation packages are expensive and difficult to learn, and the subsequent production of even short animations can take weeks to months. Here I outline the principles and sequence of steps for producing high-quality PowerPoint…

Chemistry is commonly portrayed at three different levels of representation--macroscopic, submicroscopic and symbolic--that combine to enrich the explanations of chemical concepts. In this article, we examine the use of submicroscopic and symbolic representations in chemical explanations and ascertain how they provide meaning. Of specific interest…

In this personal essay, the author describes her development as a teacher over a quarter of a century. Specifically, she discusses how, from her originally negative attitude toward content reading strategies, she grew to embrace the concept in her science classes. Drawing on her experiences, she provides examples of how her teaching has changed…

We report on an educational project in particle physics based on Feynman diagrams. By dropping the mathematical aspect of the method and keeping just the iconic one, it is possible to convey many different concepts from the world of elementary particles, such as antimatter, conservation laws, particle creation and destruction, real and virtual…

Teaching university physics through the internet is not new, but a new course providing the same service for secondary school students is the first of its kind in Hong Kong. Taking advantage of the fast and affordable broadband internet in the region, some university courses have been converted to a cyber curriculum suitable for secondary school…