This handbook is designed for college teachers who want to explore new ways to enhance student learning. The handbook draws on the knowledge of teachers and scientists with extensive experience in the natural sciences and a keen interest in effective science teaching, and is appropriate for anyone teaching undergraduate science. This handbook…

This study examined the education of chemistry professionals in Brazil in light of the profile of such professionals in the current job market. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 chemists employed by two foreign and one domestic companies in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The chemists were graduates of the three major universities…

This booklet serves as an advisory reference to available software programs that address specific objectives for students in grades 1-8 in all three Basic Skills Assessment Program (BSAP) curriculum areas--language arts, mathematics, and science. A description of the basic skills objectives precedes each curriculum section. Information provided…

This booklet is intended to help vocational teachers identify students who need remediation in one or more of the basic skills areas and to provide suggestions for assisting students in acquiring the basic skills they will need for employability. The guide provides information about basic skills in each of five areas (reading, writing,…

The document claims that American Indians are the least represented culturally different population in science-related fields of study. In American Indian community schools, science is still taught using outdated conformity-and-assimilation strategies, which neglect consideration of Native American cultural views. The report describes a study…

The United States Department of Education's National Diffusion Network (NDN) assists public and private educational institutions in sharing exemplary programs, products, and processes. The staff development and teaching strategies offered by NDN projects are intended to renew and enhance elementary and secondary teachers' knowledge and approaches…

To determine the effect of collaborative learning methods on the success rate of physics students at Northern Maine Technical College (NMTC), a study was undertaken to compare the mean final exam scores of a students in a physics course taught by traditional lecture/lab methods to those in a group taught by collaborative techniques. The…

A great deal of received wisdom in the area of the lack of ability of women in science is still based on assumption, belief, or prejudices operating at the level of superstition. The "Snark Syndrome," a term inspired by Lewis Carroll's famous nonsense poem. "The Hunting of the Snark" was coined by Eileen Byrne to describe these…

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 report examines an attempt to use cooperative learning in two sections of a college chemistry course and focuses specifically on male and female student attitudes and achievement in the course. A total of 46 students participated. One lab section used cooperative structures throughout an entire 16-week semester while the other section used…

Examples are drawn from an ongoing research program conducted in Australia and the United States to help explain how metaphors and images are associated with salient teaching roles and belief sets. This document is partitioned into five sections: (1) method; (2) metaphors and images; (3) teacher change; (4) what we learned from these studies; and…

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…

This bulletin discusses the concept of technology and the nature of technology education in Australia, including: technological literacy, technological awareness, technological capability, and information technology. Recent curriculum developments in technology and what they mean for teachers' roles in mathematics and science are explored. In…

As part of a larger examination of teaching and learning within the social context of high school biology classrooms, a case study examined the enactment of literacy events as social processes in two high school biology classrooms. Two veteran high school biology teachers in an urban high school used identical first-year biology textbooks and…

This handbook offers teachers suggestions for ways to help students become risk-takers. Five levels of risk-taking behavior are identified: the uninhibited risk-taker, the analytical risk-taker, the cautious risk-taker, the inhibited risk-taker, and the nonrisk-taker. The importance of risk-taking for problem solving, and the teacher's role in…