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During the Cultivating Diverse Talent in STEM (CDTIS) Project, a team of scientists, teachers, and a researcher developed a performance-based assessment of high school students' creative problem-solving skills and ability to apply physical science principles in practical ways. It was one of six measures to identify exceptionally talented students. Students identified using conventional methods (M1), with an average grade point average (GPA) of 3.93, had an average rating of 2.95 on a 5-point scale on the mechanical-technical assessment. The M2 students, who were from schools with high percentages of Hispanic, American Indian, and low socioeconomic status (SES) students, had an average GPA of 3.07 and an average rating of 3.27, demonstrating that this assessment can be an important way to change the cultural and economic balance of students identified as exceptionally talented in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Other researchers are encouraged to examine the validity of the mechanical-technical assessment to identify exceptionally talented students in different groups.

Developing students' strengths while teaching the content required by national and state standards in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is challenging for classroom teachers. In the Cultivating Diverse Talent in STEM (CDTIS) project, the assessment results found in strength-based reports gave teachers the tools needed to pursue STEM projects that were community and globally inspired, student selected, and aligned with standards. Results of Discovering Intellectual Strengths and Capabilities while Observing Varied Ethnic Responses (DISCOVER) assessments were compiled into easy-to-understand charts and profiles for each student and the class as a whole; the data from assessments of creative problem-solving in all domains were combined to show the students' strengths. Profiles were then given to students and their parents. Reports contained a summary of the assessments, ideas for developing each area of strength, useful materials, ways to move from focusing on "right answers" to rewarding creative thinking, and careers aligned with the domains of ability. Teachers and students participated in Real Engagement in Active Problem Solving (REAPS) in which students solved real-world problems from their local communities and the world that were connected to their academic areas of study. Using REAPS in any STEM area boosts students' focus, motivation, interest, and understanding.

Concept maps were created as one of six measures to identify exceptionally talented students during the Cultivating Diverse Talent in STEM (CDTIS) project, with the goal of identifying and nurturing talents in students from groups traditionally underrepresented in special programs. New methods were compared with conventional methods to select students for an internship in the laboratories of scientists. In this article, we describe development, field testing, and implementation of the concept map assessments in life and physical science. Assessments were field tested in partner schools with high percentages of American Indian (97% to 100%) and Hispanic (83%) low-income students. Students were selected by considering their performance on all six assessments and were placed in internships along with students selected using conventional methods. Concept maps were successful: (a) students from partner schools demonstrated high levels of domain-relevant skills; (b) scores approximated a normal distribution; (c) scores of students from culturally diverse, low-income groups were very similar to the scores of students selected using conventional methods even though many of conventionally identified students had high grade point averages and came from schools in high-income areas with many educational opportunities. Students completed original research and presented posters to the university community and their local communities. Concept maps can be used alone or in combination with other assessments; their use needs to be studied with larger groups of students and in other contexts.

First-year students are compelled by South African universities to use the Moodle e-learning management platform. Recent studies outline that this creates challenges during the learning process, since students struggle to use Moodle owing to their disadvantaged school background; however, they are familiar with and good at using the WhatsApp social media platform. While these studies have attempted to provide possible solutions, there is a need for an alternative option. This qualitative case study proposes alternatives and the possible use of WhatsApp to supplement Moodle, depending on the personal needs of the student. Twenty five first-year students doing Physical science education modules were purposively and conveniently sampled, and the data generated from semi-structured interviews, focus group discussion, and emailed reflective activities were thematically coded to produce a theory of e-learning platforms. Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge (TPACK) theory was used to direct the study and make sense of the data. The findings revealed that a personal e-learning platform which has been neglected in the past could be used to improve e-learning. It also revealed that while students only had the option of using a formal e-learning platform (Moodle), they would prefer to use their more familiar informal e-learning platform (WhatsApp). The study concludes that without considering the use of a personal e-learning platform that blends both Moodle and WhatsApp, the problem might be further escalated.

The aim of the present study was to examine science and non-science education secondary school teachers' skill to evaluate arguments, and how this skill relates to their skill to construct arguments and to their perceptions about their ability to teach argumentation skills effectively. The study also examined whether teachers' argument skills and their self-efficacy of teaching argumentation were domain-specific. Social-science education teachers, who teach literature and history, and physical science education teachers, were asked to write two essays -- one on a social topic and another on a socio-scientific topic--, to evaluate the quality of written arguments and to complete an instrument assessing their self-efficacy of teaching argumentation. Results showed that teachers' ability to construct arguments predicted their ability to evaluate arguments. Yet, although teachers expressed high self-efficacy in teaching argumentation in both domains, their abilities to evaluate and construct arguments were not sufficiently developed, in neither domain. The findings of the present study have important educational implications, suggesting that specific attention needs to be paid on teachers' skills of constructing and evaluating arguments.

Young children love opportunities to build, discover, and solve problems. Teachers can take advantage of these natural tendencies by introducing students to aspects of engineering design while they engage in classroom activities. Engineering also lends itself to supporting students in developing disciplinary literacy practices such as learning from informational text read-alouds and engaging in structured writing and talking opportunities, which are part of the "Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts" (CCSS ELA; NGAC and CCSSO 2010). In this article the authors overview a coherent unit designed to support students in engaging in engineering practices to deepen their understanding of the kindergarten physical science performance expectations (PEs). Then they provide examples of key activities from the unit that supported the integration of science, engineering, and disciplinary literacy.

Methods traditionally used to teach and train in STEM fields are being used to educate for careers in homeland security, Wall Street investments, and financial planning. An example of this trend is the increasing number of courses offered at institutions of higher education, such as financial engineering, computational finance, and risk analytics. These jobs draw heavily on STEM knowledge and skills, and represent some of the most rapidly growing or wealth producing sectors of the U.S. economy. To better prepare non-STEM majors entering these fields, we developed an interdisciplinary science course for nonscience majors with the goals of reducing the negative perceptions and attitudes towards the science general education curriculum. This interdisciplinary course also created a venue to teach non-science majors how to deal with real world STEM issues. By engaging students in activities which promoted skills critical in STEM fields, we designed a course that integrated a sampling of content in physical and life sciences, while at the same time increasing scientific curiosity and literacy. This new course, STEM 1200-Scientific Decisions in Everyday Life was taught employing active engagement techniques and student-centered demonstrations to increase conceptual understanding of scientific concepts. Results of a Wilcoxon Signed Rants test on a pre- and post-course assessment question showed a significant gain in students' confidence in their conceptual understanding as a result of the engaging demonstrations.

Background: Recent policies have given momentum to the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in the USA and throughout the world. This has resulted in rapid growth in engineering and STEM curricula, many of which incorporate global contexts to frame student experiences; however, little research has been done on the effects of this contextualization. Thus, it is critical to explore the impact of these curricula on student learning and the development of STEM identities, especially those who have historically been marginalized in STEM fields. The purposes of this study are to critically examine how STEM curriculum helps shape students' perceptions of the underlying cultural context and suggest ways that anti-oppressive education theory can be applied in middle school physical science classrooms. This study draws on classroom observational data and the curriculum text itself to understand how students perceive culture that they do not identify with. Results: We found that the curriculum provides very limited perspectives of the non-dominant culture in which the learning was situated. Our results also indicate three emerging themes showing students to be demonstrating an elitist viewpoint, having a narrow view of another culture, or being indifferent toward the embedded cultural context in the lessons. As a class, deficit-based views of the people and places presented in the lesson were created rather than the desired culturally competent views. These negative perceptions were imprinted and solidified through limited portrayal of the embedded culture in the curriculum. Conclusions: This work highlights the importance of curriculum context in students' learning. Beliefs about the people and places are created through global context presented in the curriculum. Portrayal of these people and places was not representative of the culture; thus, resulting in limited perceptions of the situated contexts. It is crucial that the teachers critically evaluate the curriculum prior to its implementation to make sure Others are represented appropriately by drawing upon the anti-oppressive education theory. Lastly, we also advocate for the incorporation of global culture in STEM curriculum by having students learn beyond what the written curriculum offers.

Over the last two decades, the rapid growth of learner enrolments in schools in most countries, including South Africa, has brought many challenges, such as a high learner-educator ratio (LER). The purpose of the study reported on was to explore an LER policy that can enhance learner academic achievement in physical sciences. Effective learning demands opportunities for learners to become actively involved in their physical sciences education. Thus, the physical sciences educator should not only act as a lecturer and transmitter of knowledge, but also as a facilitator, an enabler and an empowerer. The research used qualitative research and cultural-historical activity theory as the theoretical framework, viewing learning and teaching as a social process in which the interaction between the learners is the focus and smaller class size is transformative for both learners and educators. Data was collected from physical sciences teachers, principals and curriculum advisers through face-to-face interviews. The study concluded that large class sizes affect the implementation of practical activities and discipline may be adversely affected. Based on the findings of the study the following recommendation was made: the Department of Basic Education should reduce the LER to 30:1 or fewer learners in a class to allow for group activities and learner-centred science.

Scientific inquiry has been advocated as a common curriculum goal in school science education in South Africa, and also throughout the world. In South Africa, the introduction of inquiry-based instruction in a reformed science curriculum has met with serious challenges, such as the under-preparedness of in-service teachers. The purpose of this study was to capture, portray and develop the pedagogical practice of Physical Sciences teachers in inquiry-based teaching using an empowerment evaluation approach. The study is a multiple case study in inquiry-based teaching of three Physical Sciences teachers in South Africa using a mixed methods design. Empowerment evaluation is the use of evaluation concepts, techniques, and findings to foster improvement and self-determination. Underlying an inquiry-based pedagogy is the assumption that science education is not merely about knowing-acquisition, but understanding how scientific knowledge is generated, evaluation of knowledge claims and conducting scientific research. Data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews, a pedagogical orientation instrument, and classroom observations. The findings reveal that through empowerment evaluation, teacher practices in the classroom shifted towards an inquiry-based approach. The empowerment evaluation approach thus offers a viable and sustained form of professional development that is likely to empower teachers in assessing, planning, implementing and evaluating what they do.

Single-sex schooling is believed to benefit students' academic achievement and girls' engagement in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM). The latter is assumed because single-sex environments are meant to neutralise gender stereotypes. Little is known, however, about longer term effects of such schooling. Therefore, we consider whether graduating from a single-sex school increases the uptake of university majors in physical or life sciences. Using data from the 2003 cohort of the Longitudinal Survey of Australian Youth and multinomial logistic regressions, we find that girls who graduated from single-sex schools did not major in physical sciences at university at rates higher than their peers from coeducational schools. Likewise, there are no differences in the take up of life science majors, irrespective of gender or type of school. By contrast, fewer boys who graduated from single-sex schools went on to study physical sciences at university. We discuss the implications of these findings.

Problem-based learning (PBL) instruction tasks students with solving a real-world, relevant problem and provides a motivating context for learning science content. It also affords a natural opportunity for students to intentionally engage in a variety of engineering practices and components of engineering design if the problem scenario purposefully includes solution constraints and criteria. In this article, we describe a classroom-tested engineering (E)-PBL scenario unit that will allow teachers to authentically include engineering concepts while helping students understand the physical science concept that the faster an object is moving the more energy it has (4-PS3.A). This unit description will help teachers take the classic egg drop activity to an instructional and learning level that reflects authentic three dimensional learning.

Science teachers must sometimes teach outside of their expertise, and this type of teaching assignment is referred to as being out-of-field. Among newly hired teachers, this type of assignment may have a detrimental impact in the development of their instruction. This study explored the classroom instruction of 17 newly hired teachers who were teaching both in-field and out-of-field in the physical sciences during their first three years. Data were collected from the teachers that consisted of four yearly observations of their instruction (a total of 12 observations), yearly interviews about their experiences (four total), and monthly interviews pertaining to their instruction (eight each year, for a total of 24). Narratives were constructed for each teacher that depicted their instruction over time, with reference to their teaching in-field or out-of-field subjects. The narratives were compared to one another to determine how their classroom instruction was shaped by teaching in-field or out-of-field. The findings of the study revealed that teaching out-of-field during the first year was an additional instructional challenge, which compounded the already difficult first few years of teaching. In addition, the findings revealed that out-of-field teaching resulted in isolated instructional scientific practices--regardless of the years of experience. These findings suggest that newly hired science teachers teaching out-of-field are more at risk of not cultivating their science instruction than are their in-field counterparts. The results of this study indicate that more research is needed about out-of-field teaching in science subjects.

Energy is a central concept in science in every discipline and also an essential player in many of the issues facing people everywhere on the globe. However, studies have shown that by the end of K-12 schooling, most students do not reach the level of understanding required to be able to use energy to make sense of a wide range of phenomena. Many researchers have questioned whether the conceptual foundations of traditional approaches to energy instruction may be responsible for students' difficulties. In response to these concerns, we developed and tested a novel approach to middle school physical science energy instruction that was informed by the recommendations of the Framework for K-12 Science Education (National Research Council, 2012a) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) (NGSS Lead States, 2013). This new approach differs substantially from more traditional approaches to energy instruction in that it does not require energy forms and it emphasizes connections between energy, systems, and fields that mediate interaction-at-a-distance. We investigated student learning during this novel approach and contrasted it with student learning within a comparable unit based on a more traditional approach to energy instruction. Our findings indicate that students who learned in the new approach outperformed students who learned in the traditional approach in every quantitative and qualitative aspect considered in this study, irrespective of their prior knowledge of energy. They developed more parsimonious knowledge networks in relation to energy that focused primarily around the concept of energy transfer. This study warrants further investigation into the value of this new approach to energy instruction in both middle and high school.

National science education documents emphasize new learning outcomes of elementary students; therefore, the preparation of elementary teachers should be revised to meet these challenges. This article describes how science educators at a large southeastern university developed specialized science training for elementary preservice teachers (EPSTs) by creating a combination of discipline-specific science content courses (physical, life, and Earth science) and methods courses (formal and informal) known as an elementary science concentration (ESC). The semester-long, discipline-specific science content courses of the ESC are structured into four modules that focus on the disciplinary core ideas of the new framework (National Research Council, 2012). In this article, we highlight one content course (physical science) and select one module (Core Idea PS3: Energy) to illustrate the design of the content courses. Assignment descriptions and student artifacts are used as supports to teach the disciplinary core idea emphasizing specialized knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. The methods courses (formal and informal) are explained using key assignments and experiences. The structure of the ESC provides EPSTs with more opportunities to learn specialized teaching approaches for each discipline of science within a variety of environments.

We evaluated STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) coursework selection by women and men (representative longitudinal sample, 10,370 Australians) in senior high school and university, controlling achievement and expectancy-value variables. A near-zero total effect of gender on high school STEM enrollment reflected pathways favoring boys through achievement and expectancy-value variables, but a counteracting direct effect of gender favoring girls. In contrast, subsequent university STEM enrollment favored boys. In both high school and university, enrollments favored girls in life sciences and boys in physical sciences, but at university there was a leaky pipeline in which girls who qualified to pursue physical sciences opted for non-STEM subjects. Qualitative analysis not only supported quantitative results but also highlighted alternative mechanisms of STEM engagement/disengagement, and mostly supported gender similarities rather than differences.

This mixed method study investigated changes in 3rd year Bachelor of Education students' attitudes towards chemistry after learning interventions with virtual chemistry simulations. After participant students identified certain concepts from their 3rd year chemistry module as being abstract and not easily comprehensible, these concepts were facilitated during a 5 week learning intervention using PhET simulations as an alternative to traditional laboratory experimentation. In the first quantitative phase of the study, a 30-item pre-attitude test was administered to assess students' attitudes towards chemistry, followed by PhET chemistry simulation learning interventions. Thereafter, students wrote a post-attitude test. Findings of this phase revealed a significantly higher mean post-attitude test score, with students showing a positive attitude towards chemistry learning, post-intervention. The quantitative phase was followed by a qualitative phase which examined students' experiences on the use of simulations through semi-structured interviews. Findings from the qualitative phase revealed that students experienced autonomy and enjoyment during engagement with the simulations. They also perceived that their experiences in the virtually simulated environment improved their visualisation of chemistry concepts, thereby improving conceptual understanding. However, the students acknowledged that simulations cannot replicate the realism and authenticity associated with practical work in an actual laboratory. The implications of these findings are that virtual simulations provide a complementary learning tool capable of improving students' attitudes towards chemistry, and perceived by students to support their visualisation of abstract chemistry concepts. The findings of this study are particularly significant for chemistry learning at schools and universities in economically challenged countries such as South Africa where there is a shortage of well-equipped laboratories.

The scarcity of trained man power in the field of science and technology has become a growing phenomenon today. Thus, we are still facing the same challenge country wide. With the multidimensional increase in the field of science and technology, there is a huge shortage of expert workforce in the field of STEM. The numbers of students who qualify for admission into higher educational institution in STEM field is less than required. Our old age school systems from our country sides have failed to fulfill the need of this time. In addition, most rural schools lack basic facilities in terms of the resources required for better learning. Therefore, the author suggests the use of analogy as a powerful tool for a child centric education in rural schools with less resource.

Current science education reform efforts emphasize teaching K-12 science using hands-on, inquiry activities. For maximum learning and probability of implementation among inservice teachers, these strategies must be modeled in college science courses for preservice teachers. About a decade ago, Morehead State University revised their science content courses to follow an inquiry approach. As part of the courses' assessment, a locally-made, diagnostic pre- and post-test was prepared. The main purpose of this "ex post facto" study was to demonstrate how concepts from Item Response Theory can be used to detect and remove psychometrically faulty items, and how the remaining items can be used by teachers to determine science learning gains in an inquiry-based physical science course that implemented two different curricula, "Physics and Everyday Thinking" and "Interactions in Physical Science".

The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between United States (US) preservice middle school science teacher characteristics, their attitude toward a specific animal and their belief concerning the likelihood of incorporating information about that specific animal into their future science classroom. The study participants consisted of 204 US preservice middle school science teachers. The participants self-reported their gender, age, number of college biological science courses taken and their preference to teach biological science or physical science when they were an inservice middle school teacher. The participants were then shown thirty pictures of biodiverse animals. For each picture the participants rated their attitude toward the animal shown. The participants then rated the likelihood, based on their attitude, of incorporating information about the animal shown into their future science classroom. The preservice middle school science teacher characteristics that positively increased the preservice middle school science teacher's attitude or the likelihood of incorporating information about biodiverse groups of animals into their future classroom were being a male, having taken one additional college biological science course or being older than 26 years of age. Implications are discussed that are applicable to teacher education programs and science educators.

This paper focused on the analysis of test items constructed in the paper of teaching Physical Science for B.Ed. class. It involved the analysis of difficulty level and discrimination power of each test item. Item analysis allows selecting or omitting items from the test, but more importantly item analysis is a tool to help the item writer improve an item. There were 100 objective type questions in the achievement test and was administered to a sample of 100 students from B.Ed. colleges. The result of the work showed that most of the test items fall in the acceptable range of difficulty index and discrimination index. However, 17 of the test items was excluded due to very high or very low difficulty level and poor discrimination power. Purposive sampling was adopted for this study and 100 B.Ed. Physical Science students were taken from private B.Ed. Colleges in Pondicherry, India. A test of 100 items was used for data collection. Using the findings relationship between the difficulty index of each item and the corresponding discrimination index is carried out using the Pearson correlation formula. From the analysis, it was found that item discrimination power increased with the increase in difficulty value but got decreased for very easy and very difficult test items. This work is significant for the researcher in framing test items with optimum difficulty and discrimination power. The findings also show that, most of the items were falling in the acceptable range of difficulty and discrimination level, however, some items were rejected due to their poor discrimination index.

Students' epistemologies play a crucial role in helping them construct knowledge. In addition, studying epistemological beliefs is important because they influence students' motivation and affect students' selection of learning strategies (Schommer, Crouse, & Rhodes, 1992; Hofer & Pintrich, 1997). The purpose of this study is to investigate primary pre-service science teachers' epistemologies, their views about the nature of knowledge and learning in the physical sciences. Epistemological Beliefs Assessment for Physical Science (EBAPS) (White et al., 1999) survey was used to collect data. EBAPS attempts to focus on epistemology to the extent possible, and also attempts to probe tacit, contextualized epistemological knowledge that may affect students' science learning. In that case, it is important to attend pre-service science teachers' epistemologies because it may assist us to explain the differences in their learning with research-based curricula, construct more effective curricula, and become better science instructors (Lising & Elby, 2005). The EBAPS survey was administered to primary pre-service science teachers at Bahrain Teachers College (BTC). Most of the pre-service science teachers have a great deal of difficult learning physical sciences and they behave like non-expert like.

In designing the lesson teachers have to adapt the method or learning model with the material to be taught. In the teaching of measuring concept, students frequently faced with measuring instruments, micrometer, screw, scale, and so on. Direct Instruction Model would be suitable for teaching the measurement concepts specifically the skill of using measurement tools. The purpose of the study was to determine the level of students mastery on the concept of measurement through direct instructional model. Descriptive research with action in the class were used in this research to determine the level of students mastery on the measurement concept of the physical sciences in order to achieve competency. The samples were 25 seventh grade students on the second semester of academic year 2012/2013 of 11 Ambon State Junior High Schools. The instrument used was the test to measure the mastery of concepts. Performance test scores and daily tests are converted into the category of excellent, good, sufficient and poor. The results showed that the level of students mastery of the material is at very good and well with the percentage of the final results of formative student tests are 48.0% and 44.0% respectively. It can be concluded that the direct instructional model successfully improve student learning outcomes, especially to the concept of measurement.

In French nursery schools ("l'école maternelle française"), primary school teachers take charge of the content organised into teaching areas of activities. The prescribed teaching activity "Discovering the world of life sciences, objects and material" refers to biology, physical sciences, chemistry and technology. The children's learning path concerning these worlds represents the early stages of the curriculum. Many research studied these children's learning (e.g. Bisault, 2005; Fleer, 1996; Ravanis & al., 2013). This paper focuses on teachers and aims at describing and analysing the implementation of the practices of this early childhood education. In a curriculum perspective (Dillon, 2009; Martinand, 2003; Ross, 2000), an inquiry about the practices reported both in teachers' logs and questionnaires, reveals the contents, activities and issues associated with these educational experiences. The results show biology is privileged and preferred to technology by the teachers. The research indicates an interrelated scientific and technological curriculum and a science and technology mostly found, in what I called, "compositional schemes". The discovery of this world, through these compositional schemes, takes various positions according to the priorities assigned by the teachers. The research at last allows me to discuss the professional training of preschool teachers in order to improve the teaching practices in science and technology.

Being a class room teacher in rural areas for more than two decade's author has observed that rural area learners are suffering from multi faced learning barriers. Conceptual understanding and reasoning capacity is very poor and they are performing poorly in their school based examinations. Aim of this paper is to present a suitable, cost effective and result oriented method that can help to impart better science education to the rural learners who are otherwise underprivileged.

In an age where getting an answer is as easy as a well-chosen phrase typed into a search engine, it is important for teachers to be more interested in "how" students know, rather than "what" students know. In the sea of available information today, students must provide answers based on evidence. A student's ability to explain and express provides the teacher with information about his or her understanding of the concept. A student learning new concepts and the process of scientific experimentation will benefit greatly from being required to explain, prove, and demonstrate his or her scientific reasoning. Using higher depth-of-knowledge skills makes it impossible to guess or "fake" one's way through a topic. Through the "Next Generation Science Standards," students learn to construct their own explanations. Synthesizing information and analyzing data are both necessary, if he or she is to explain an answer, using results from experimentation, or even theories from a textbook. This article provides one classroom routine, two naturally evidence-based lessons, and one lesson modified to allow for more student argumentation and for analysis of scientific thinking. These were all used in a physical science class, but the techniques and styles are adaptable to any secondary science subject matter.

Acquiring a basic understanding about the composition of crystal structures and the resulting structure-property relationship is central for chemists and material chemists, enabling the prediction of desired properties and the solution of a wide range of current challenges in sciences, e.g., the development of clean-energy storage. For a deeper understanding of physical and chemical properties of crystals, it is necessary to focus on different global and local structural features that characterize the composition of several atoms or ions as well as the direct environment of single atoms or ions. To improve students' mental visualization of both global and local features of the three-dimensional order of crystal structures, we developed and implemented a modeling activity with new transparent models. During the activity, students construct and compare models of common crystal structures, like sodium chloride and zinc blend. The usage of clear plastic balls, in particular, allows students to focus on global features such as packing arrangement and lattice structure, as well as on local ones, like coordination number, site occupation, and polyhedral connectivity. The latter features have been difficult to realize so far. We used a design-based research approach to improve the activity and the instructional material, provided herein, through several rounds of evaluation in a course for undergraduate students in materials chemistry. A detailed qualitative analysis of students' discourse during the activity revealed that students were engaged in various content-related interactions with the models and that it is beneficial to combine a student-centered construction of the models with a subsequent comparison phase.

The authors focused on using antiques to learn how to teach elementary children about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in a historical context; they refer to the historical objects as "antique artifacts." By studying antiques, students get a real-world opportunity to learn how people in their local area and beyond harvested food, entertained themselves, and explored new technologies during a time before they were born, hence fostering the inquiry-based instruction needed to get young children interested in STEM. The preservice candidates at the authors' school created an Antiques STEM Roadshow for their second- and third-grade students. The students were to explore objects that were older than their birth year and explain the STEM history behind the objects in the style of the popular television show "Antiques Roadshow." For this unit, they focused on physical science and forces and motion, but this research could easily be adjusted to account for other standards and inventions. In this article, they explain how teachers might implement a similar project in their own classroom.

This laboratory experiment demonstrates the important utility of transition-metal complexes as catalysts in the addition reaction of carbon tetrabromide (CBr ) to select alkenes. This application offers students the opportunity to understand why transition-metal complexes are worth synthesizing. The experiment builds on fundamental theories presented during first-year general chemistry courses and integrates concepts taught in organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, organometallics, and instrumental analysis. It incorporates some advanced laboratory practices for students to assimilate with, such as literature searches and interpretation; organometallic compound analysis; catalysis experiment design; reaction mechanisms; NMR spectroscopy with comprehensive spectra interpretation; and X-ray crystallography.

The purpose of this research is to better understand the uses and potential of triadic dialogue (initiation-response-feedback) as a dominant discourse pattern in test-driven environments. We used a Bakhtinian dialogic perspective to analyze interactions among high-stakes tests and triadic dialogue. Specifically, the study investigated (a) the global influence of high-stakes tests on knowledge types and cognitive processes presented and elicited by the science teacher in triadic dialogue and (b) the teacher's meaning making of her discourse patterns. The classroom talk occurred in a classroom where the teacher tried to balance conceptual learning with helping low-income public school students pass the national tests. Videos and transcripts of 20 grade 8 and 9 physical science sessions were analyzed qualitatively. Teacher utterances were categorized in terms of science knowledge types and cognitive processes. Explicitness and directionality of shifts among different knowledge types were analyzed. It was found that shifts between factual/conceptual/procedural-algorithmic and procedural inquiry were mostly dialectical and implicit, and dominated the body of concept development lessons. These shifts called for medium-level cognitive processes. Shifts between the different knowledge types and procedural-testing were more explicit and occurred mostly at the end of lessons. Moreover, the science teacher's focus on success and high expectations, her explicitness in dealing with high-stakes tests, and the relaxed atmosphere she created built a constructive partnership with the students toward a common goal of "cracking the test." We discuss findings from a Bakhtinian dialogic perspective and the potential of triadic dialogue for teachers negotiating multiple goals and commitments.

The current study investigated the impact of certain demographic variables on academic leadership preparedness. The sample comprised 372 academic leaders from various higher education institutions in India. Data were collected using online and postal surveys. Results indicate that leaders' age, number of years' leadership experience and academic disciplinary background are significantly related to their preparedness. Type of institution (private or government) of the leader, however, did not affect their preparedness. Leaders with a disciplinary background in natural sciences were found to be the least prepared in the group. Leaders with a disciplinary background in humanities and social sciences were found to be more prepared as compared to those with a disciplinary background in physical sciences. Understanding the predictors of academic leadership preparedness is necessary in order to strengthen leadership in higher education. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Although reflection is a key behaviour of expert designers, it is often a challenging task for new designers. In addition, research on the reflectivity of student designers is limited. The purpose of this study is twofold: (1) to identify the levels of reflectivity while designing, and (2) to study the relationship between reflectivity and conceptions of informed design. We collected data from high school students engaged in an engineering design project. We developed a coding protocol to score levels of reflectivity in student reflections at three levels (low, medium, and high), and used the "conceptions of design test" to assess changes in student understanding of design activities. Using Wilcoxon signed-rank tests, we determined if students tended to select more 'key' design activities and fewer 'distractors' within each reflection group. We also performed McNemar's tests to determine which specific design activities were important within each reflection group after the design project. The results show moderately reflective students had higher gains in understanding of informed design activities compared to those with high or low reflectivity. Results also indicate that different design activities became important for students within each of the three reflective groups. Implications from this research indicate that groups of students experience changing conceptions of design in different ways. An understanding of what students deem important while designing would better allow teachers to encourage behaviours that are like those of informed designers.

An in-class case study is presented for use in a liberal arts core extreme weather course, designed to foster science literacy, appreciation, and critical thinking skills in nonscience majors. Students are ultimately shown the critical importance of the physical sciences in their daily lives and encouraged to consider STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) related careers. The focal weather event is a severe, tornadic storms outbreak in the central plains of the United States. Students are tasked with analyzing the prestorm environment as related to severe thunderstorm potential, determining the most likely regions favored for tornado activity, and investigating the societal impacts from such an event. The activity, termed the "Virtual Storm Chase," incorporates innovative active learning based strategies for student engagement in large classroom environments, including the use of classroom technology, small group work, and real-world data-sets that generate high student excitement factor.

Our population is aging, calling for communities to be more age friendly and younger individuals to be more aware of aging issues that will impact their personal and professional lives. However, colleges provide few opportunities for students to prepare themselves for a more age-diverse world. Drawing on a new general education core curriculum that calls for students to gain and integrate information within four different knowledge perspectives, we describe a multidisciplinary course that uses information from the physical and social sciences to examine age-friendly community problems and solutions. Topics included environmental health, industrial ecology, and sustainable energy in the context of social-psychological well-being across the life span. Research activities and design projects gave students hands-on opportunities to apply multidisciplinary approaches to complex problems and gain age-related knowledge. Evaluations indicated that the course successfully accomplished its learning objectives, and several lessons were learned about delivering an age-friendly, multidisciplinary course.

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) provide a succession of objectives for energy learning and set an expectation for teachers to assess learners' representations of energy in a variety of science contexts. To support teachers in evaluating the extent to which representations of energy display NGSS objectives, we have (i) discerned the constituent ideas that comprise the NGSS model of energy in the physical sciences and (ii) developed a checklist for assessing the extent to which an energy diagram provides evidence of the NGSS energy model. This energy diagram checklist is representation independent (so that diverse diagrams in a course may all be evaluated) and scenario independent (so that it can be applied throughout the physical science curriculum). We demonstrate the use of the checklist for assessing both pedagogical energy diagrams and learner-invented energy diagrams, including measuring a class's increased facility with energy diagrams.

Mechanistic reasoning, or reasoning systematically through underlying factors and relationships that give rise to phenomena, is a powerful thinking strategy that allows one to explain and make predictions about phenomena. This article synthesizes and builds on existing frameworks to identify essential characteristics of students' mechanistic reasoning across scientific content areas. We argue that these characteristics can be represented as "epistemic heuristics," or ideas about how to direct one's intellectual work, that implicitly guide mechanistic reasoning. We use this framework to characterize middle school students' written explanatory accounts of two phenomena in different science content areas using these heuristics. We demonstrate evidence of heuristics in students' accounts and show that the use of the heuristics was related to but distinct from science content knowledge. We describe how the heuristics allowed us to characterize and compare the mechanistic sophistication of account construction across science content areas. This framework captures elements of a crosscutting practical epistemology that may support students in directing the construction of mechanistic accounts across content areas over time, and it allows us to characterize that progress.

A new Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) was introduced in South Africa in 2012 to, among others, drive a learner-centred and constructivist approach to practical work in the high school subject Physical Sciences. This study investigates teachers' concerns with the implementation of practical work in Physical Sciences. A survey of 81 high school physical science teachers' concerns was conducted in a school district in South Africa. Participants were selected from 52 schools by means of convenience sampling. The seven stage concerns-based adoption model was used to identify teachers' stages of concern on the practical component of CAPS. The findings indicate that 69% of the participants (n = 47) had management concerns of high significance (p = 0.51), while the collaboration and consequence concerns were only slightly significant (p = 0.96). With regards to CAPS experience, respondents who had been implementing CAPS for less than three years had more personal concerns compared with those who had been executing it for three to four years. Equally, respondents with less experience with CAPS had marginally more management concerns compared with respondents with more experience. These trends were also observed with the collaboration and refocusing concerns suggesting that teachers with less CAPS experience worry more about their ability to manage practical work and to make laboratory activities workable in their contexts. The paper concludes with a discussion on the variety of concerns and how these might be addressed through targeted teacher professional development support.

Technological innovation in science provides complementary tools for exploring new teaching strategies within a pedagogical framework that promotes interaction between the teacher and the learner. This work is based on the implementation of a computer application modeling crystallographic material structures, in order to identify and study the different crystalline structures and their characteristics, based on the techniques of three-dimensional modeling covering the OpenGL library and the Euler rotation matrices, and developed by the C # programming language. The analysis and design of this study ranging from the study of the existing, the identification of the problematic, modeling and development, and finally the validation tests. Our research is aimed at second-year chemistry students at Ben M'sik Faculty of Science, Hassan II University of Casablanca, Morocco. We wish to conduct a comparative study between classical methods and after numerical simulation, in order to identify didactic factors influencing the cognitive engagement of learners. The results were good, 89.20% of students in the first group who worked on manipulations using the simulation application scored above 15/20, and 90.22% scored above 15.20./20 for the second group after completion of the manipulations according to the two modalities (traditional and computer). Teachers mentioned that the results have been favorable and support the recommended educational objectives for effective integration of this computer system, which seems to be effective for students who have tried to interact with the practical work to understand the phenomenon of crystallography by a virtual simulation on computer.

Ramps and Pathways (R&P) early physical science activities enable educators and young children (3-8 years) to explore and investigate what happens as marbles and rolling objects are released on constructed ramp structures and pathways using wooden cove molding. The R&P project challenged educators to transform their views of early science learning and instruction. Preliminary pilot and field-testing results demonstrate improved science achievement and teaching practices. The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential impact of R&P investigations for children with and without disabilities: (a) on learning and development in general; and (b) STEM outcomes specifically according to Idaho teacher participants. This investigation will likewise explore teachers' attitudes and firsthand experiences toward implementing R&P with young children. Teacher reflections revealed that teachers witnessed developmental benefits related to language and social emotional development during R&P. Although teachers as a group observed STEM learning and thinking for learners in general, the early childhood--special education teacher noted children with disabilities specifically learning and developing STEM concepts.

It is imperative to note that the study reported on attempted to reimagine a link between underachievement and attrition in curriculum implementation. The contextual factors that affected achievement and resulted in attrition were worth further scrutiny. The study further reported the results of a pilot study conducted in the Western Cape, South Africa. The effects of learner underperformance fuelling attrition rates were examined across the 10 different circuits of two districts in the area. Both qualitative and quantitative techniques of data collection were employed and data were analysed using descriptive and relational statistics with Pearson product correlation coefficient and regression analysis. It became evident that achievement costs, although difficult to quantify, are significant at schools, district and provincial levels. It was also noted that underachievement of Grade 12 learners had a bearing on the external factors of youth unemployment, poverty and long walking distance to school resulting in higher attrition rates. Only a handful of the Department of Basic Education officials pointed out that both teachers and learners view problems on different paradigms. It was further recommended that the Ministry of Basic Education should critically examine problems besetting Grade 12 learners and institute relevant policies to avoid future rippling effects.

The goal of this review is to identify studies of self-regulated learning of students taking introductory physical science (chemistry, physics, and engineering) courses in college. This study analysed research in self-regulated learning published between the years of 2008-2018 with a focus on undergraduate learners in chemistry, physics, and engineering classrooms. It was found that there is a high degree of agreement in defining self-regulated learning, yet differences are present in the proposed factors that are most influential in creating a self-regulated learner. A majority of the studies report correlations between variables of motivation and metacognition. Additionally, less than half of the research studies included a measure of achievement and even less had an experimental design. This review proposes a need for more studies which include teaching of self-regulated skills for undergraduates in the physical sciences and investigating the relationship of the development of self-regulated learners as an integral facet of education in physical science classrooms.

The new educational paradigm has led to a change in the teaching methodologies toward those more focused on the student, among these, project-based learning (PBL) is postulated as one of the most promising. This work is focused on the description of the experience of using PBL methodology in Materials Science courses, conducted by four different Spanish universities on different engineering degrees. The other main objective is to analyse and evaluate how the PBL was perceived by the students and the lecturers that took part in the PBL process. This investigation was an embedded, sequential mixed-methods study, which began by administering a survey to one hundred and four students and then a focus group with six students and six lecturers in four different engineering degrees of four Universities. Results generally show a good degree of acceptance of this approach by all parties involved.