This study aimed to determine students' knowledge levels related to specific astronomy concepts and the effect of a planetarium environment on teaching. The study sample included seventh-grade (12-13 years old) students. For this purpose, 240 students of various socioeconomic and cultural levels from six schools (two in the city center, two…

Natural User Interfaces (NUI) are now widely used in electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets and gaming consoles. We have tried to apply this technology in the teaching of chemistry in middle school and high school. A virtual chemical laboratory was developed in which students can simulate the performance of laboratory activities similar…

Formative assessment has been demonstrated to result in increased student achievement across a variety of educational contexts. When using formative assessment strategies, teachers engage students in instructional tasks that allow the teacher to uncover levels of student understanding so that the teacher may change instruction accordingly. Tools…

Although virtual field trips are becoming popular, there are few empirical studies of their impacts on student outcomes. This study reports on a meta-analytic evaluation of the impact of a virtual field trip on student perceptions of scientists. Specifically, the study examined the summary effect of zipTrips broadcasts on evaluation…

Current science education reforms and policy documents highlight the importance of environmental awareness and perceived need for activism. As "environmental problems are socially constructed in terms of their conceptualized effects on individuals, groups, other living things and systems research based on constructivist principles provides…

Climate change science is a challenging topic for student learning. This quantitative study examined the effectiveness of a geospatial curriculum approach to promote climate change science understandings in an urban school district with eighth-grade students and investigated whether teacher- and student-level factors accounted for students'…

Studies considering whole-class use of computer simulations are limited, despite the increasing interest in this mode of use. The current study explored how a collection of computer simulations was integrated into both whole-class and small-group instructional settings during a high school chemistry unit on atomic structure. Participants included…

This study examines the effect of a program that aimed to encourage girls to choose a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) career in Israel. The program involved school visits to a high-tech company and meeting with role model female scientists. Sixty ninth-grade female students from a Jewish modern-orthodox single-sex…

A potential method for teaching geospatial thinking and reasoning (GTR) is through geospatially enabled learning technologies. We developed an energy resources geospatial curriculum that included learning activities with geographic information systems and virtual globes. This study investigated how 13 urban middle school teachers implemented and…

This exploratory study examines the impact of a collaborative inquiry- and design-based afterschool program on urban high school students' IT/STEM learning--using information technology (IT) within the context of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The study used a mixed methods design, involving 77 participants within…

This paper describes the design and impact of an inquiry-oriented online curriculum that takes advantage of dynamic molecular visualizations to improve students' understanding of chemical reactions. The visualization-enhanced unit uses research-based guidelines following the knowledge integration framework to help students develop coherent…

Enactment of scientific inquiry in classroom has attracted a great attention of science educators around the world. In this study, we examined two competent teachers' (one Grade 9 chemistry teacher and one Grade 4 science teacher) enactment of scientific inquiry in selected teaching units to reveal the characteristics of enacted inquiry at…

The development of teachers as reflective practitioners is a central concept in national guidelines for teacher preparation and induction (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education 2008). The Teacher Induction Network (TIN) supports the development of reflective practice for beginning secondary science teachers through the creation…

This paper analyzes the outcomes of an innovative technology experience for students and teachers (ITEST) project, Mayor's Youth Technology Corps (MYTCs) in Detroit, MI, which was funded by the NSF ITEST program. The MYTC project offered an integration of two technologies, geographic information system (GIS) and information assurance (IA), to…

This study focuses on elucidating and explaining reasons for the stability of and interrelationships between students' conceptions about "Light Propagation" and "Visibility of Objects" using contextualized questions across 3 years of secondary schooling from Years 7 to 9. In a large-scale quantitative study involving 1,233…