A generalist teacher is one who has been trained and certified to teach multiple core subjects. As the training and certification of generalists can vary greatly between preparation programs, generalists can enter the profession with conflicting beliefs about how a STEM classroom should be structured and facilitated. As few studies focus on…

Science content, teaching, and teacher preparation are all political acts. However, accepting the political nature of science as well as that of science teaching has proven to be a hard shift for many in the science community. In this paper, we suggest a shift away from an apolitical teaching of science toward a system of practices that transforms…

Recognizing that the power of computation has changed the practice of science, science education standards in a number of countries have included a call for the inclusion of computational thinking (CT) in K-12 science education. As CT is a relatively new construct, preparing inservice science teachers to implement CT-infused learning experiences…

Research has revealed that teachers find teaching and assessing socioscientific argumentation (SSA) to be challenging. In this study, ten pre-service science teachers (PSTs) tested a new Practical Assessment of Socioscientific Argumentation Model (PASM) that was developed to enhance skills in assessing SSA. The models' design is based on the…

Science Olympiad is a K-12 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) competition that engages approximately 7,000 teams across the U.S. in individual and team challenges at regional, state, and national levels. Science Olympiad began expanding to include elementary students in 2008. Yet, little is known about the adults who…

This qualitative case study involves a high school science teacher with a special education background in an urban school in the English School District of Newfoundland and Labrador. Conceptualized within the theoretical framework of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), this study examined the teacher's instructional practices and the tensions she…

Science teachers should be able to notice student preconceptions in order to adapt instructions to their students' needs and support the learning process. Noticing as a core practice of teaching should thus be implemented early in science teacher education. A crucial prerequisite for noticing is knowledge about students' preconceptions, which is…

The onset of the Next-Generation Science Standards [NGSS] has created a need for elementary teachers to develop purposeful, multi-dimensional formative assessments (FAs). In order to promote this process, we utilized teacher learning communities (TLCs) and practice-based professional development focused on key aspects of the reform while…

Evolution is a difficult topic to teach; teachers admit not having enough knowledge of evolution and they face student opposition to learning evolution, especially based on religious grounds. Teachers are therefore motivated to gain knowledge in the field of evolution. We conducted a 30-hour evolution teacher training course, which included…

This study aims to explore public high school teachers' professional development (PD) experiences in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates, using (SWOT) analysis, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Using a mixed-methods approach with an exploratory sequential design, the study population comprised 150 male and female science teachers from…

A mixed-methods, quasi-experimental design was employed to explore how the Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning (CER) framework along with written, verbal, and peer scaffolds would influence early childhood/elementary and elementary/middle childhood preservice teachers' (PSTs) abilities to formulate scientific explanations within a physical science…

In an effort to deepen learning in K-12 science classrooms, there has been a national movement to integrate computational thinking (CT). The purpose of this phenomenographic study was to understand teachers' perceptions of the function and usefulness of a task analysis and a decision tree tool designed to help them with integration. Teachers…

To meet the demands of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), teachers need to reconsider their current instructional practices, shifting from learning about scientific ideas to making sense of phenomena and solving problems using three-dimensional learning components. Project-Based Learning (PBL) provides a framework for creating…

This study reports on eleven second-year teachers who were all students in the same practice-based secondary science methods courses framed around ambitious science teaching. In this qualitative embedded single case study, we examined if, how, and why novice teachers linked their current critical pedagogical discourses and instruction back to any…

Virtual reality (VR) in science classrooms has the potential to enhance students' learning by bridging the knowledge in the learners' communities with science instruction. When virtual environments reflect students' culture, it has the potential to influence their attitudes toward the value of science in their community. This qualitative study…