The most obvious feature of expertise in chemistry is content knowledge, which defines the primary objectives of instruction. Research in chemistry education, and STEM education more broadly, has also devoted attention to students' developing scientific practices of reasoning, investigation, and learning. In this study, we set out to investigate…

While research shows that responsive teaching fosters students' disciplinary learning and equitable opportunities for participation, there is yet much to know about how teachers come to be responsive to their students' experiences in the science classroom. In this work, we set out to examine whether and how engaging teachers as learners in doing…

Through analysis of a classroom lesson led by a decorated teacher, we illustrate how instructional practices favor students seeking empirical patterns at the expense of using mechanistic reasoning. In the lesson, when students spontaneously come up with hypothetical mechanisms to explain why a light bulb in an electric circuit does or does not…

Research on student epistemologies in introductory courses has highlighted the importance of understanding physics as "a refinement of everyday thinking" [A. Einstein, J. Franklin Inst. 221, 349 (1936)]. That view is difficult to sustain in quantum mechanics, for students as for physicists. How might students manage the transition? In…

We study the case of Marya, a freshman engineering major who showed and spoke of a drastic shift in her feelings and approach to learning physics during an introductory course. For the first several weeks, she was anxiously manipulating equations without considering physical meaning, and she was terribly worried about being correct. By the end of…

Despite myriad attempts over the years to design curricula with logical ordering and connections, concerns persist that students view science as a body of prescribed information to memorize. In this essay, we argue that attempts to build coherence into the curriculum reflect fundamental and enduring misconceptions about the nature of coherence…

We analyzed student engagement in physics during a summer course for incoming first-year students, part of a cohort-based learning community designed for students from underrepresented groups in the School of Engineering of a predominantly white institution. The data--video of an episode within the course and interviews of the 11 students one year…

The Next Generation Science Standards states that "science begins with a question." (NGSS Lead States [2013] "Next generation science standards: For states, by states". Washington, DC: National Academies Press). Yet scientific inquiry among students and scientists alike often begins without a clear question. In this article, we…

Most accounts of affect and motivation in the science education literature have discussed them as relevant to, but distinct from, disciplinary pursuits. These include Pintrich's seminal work on affective and motivational factors in learning science (P. R. Pintrich, 1999, 2003; P. R. Pintrich & E. De Groot, 1990; P. R. Pintrich, R. W. Marx,…

Novel Engineering activities are premised on the integration of engineering and literacy: students identify and engineer solutions to problems that arise for fictional characters in stories they read for class. There are advantages to this integration, for both engineering and literacy goals of instruction: the stories provide ''clients'' to…

There is increased attention in the science education community on the importance of engaging students in the practices of science. However, there is much to be learned about "how" students enter into and sustain their engagement in these practices. In this paper, we argue that "epistemic affect"--feelings and emotions…

The work of physics learners at all levels revolves around problems. Physics education research has inspired attention to the forms of these problems, whether conceptual or algorithmic, closed or open response, well or ill structured. Meanwhile, it has been the work of curriculum developers and instructors to develop these problems. Physics…

Some aspects of child non-cognitive development in pre-school have independently been shown to predict academic outcomes in later primary and early high school. However, the extent to which each aspect uniquely predicts these outcomes remains unclear. It is also unclear as to what mechanisms may predict these aspects of non-cognitive development.…

Instructors communicate what they value about students' written work through their comments and feedback, and this feedback has the potential to direct how students approach writing assignments. In this study, we examined how graduate student teaching assistants (TAs) attended and responded to students' written lab reports in an introductory…

The "Framework for K-12 Science Education" (National Research Council, 2012) outlines eight practices to represent the diverse ways scientists construct and evaluate knowledge. Engaging students in these practices is a key instructional target in the science classroom. This target, however, creates particular challenges for online…