In this article, we present results from a research project in which the main aim was to understand students' decision-making processes in choosing to become a teacher and to make sense of the relationships between this process and the formation of their identity as a teacher. The study was conducted with 39 students from the Science Teacher…

In this commentary, I interpret Xinying Yin and Gayle Ann Buck's collaborative action research from a social-cultural perspective. Classroom implementation of formative assessment is viewed as interaction between this assessment method and the local learning culture. I first identify Yin and Buck's definition of the formative assessment, and then…

In this paper we investigate how the bodily activity of teaching, along with the embodied aspect of lived experience, relates to science teachers' ways of dealing with bodies as living organisms which are both the subject matter as well as the site or vehicle of learning. More precisely, the following questions are pursued: (1) "In what ways…

Long association with a mathematics teacher at a Grade 4-6 school in Sweden, is basis for reporting a case of teacher-researcher collaboration. Three theoretical frameworks used to study its development over time are relational knowing, relational agency and cogenerative dialogue. While relational knowing uses narrative perspectives to explore the…

Social constructivism has been increasingly studied and implemented in science school education. Nevertheless, there is a lack of holistic studies on the implementation of social constructivist approach in primary science education in Confucian heritage culture. This study aims to determine to what extent a social constructivist approach is…

Large-scale assessment, such as the Programme for International Assessment (PISA), plays an increasingly important role in current educational practice and politics. However, many scholars have questioned the validity and reliability of the tests and the extent to which they actually constitute trustworthy representations of students' knowledge.…

This study explored integrating formative assessment to a Chinese high school chemistry classroom, where the extremely high-stakes testing and Confucian-heritage culture constituted a particular context, through a collaborative action research. One researcher worked with a high school chemistry teacher in China to integrate formative assessment…

Efforts to conserve and preserve the environment in developing or marginalized locales frequently involve a one-way transfer of knowledge and materials from a source in a more developed location. This situation often degenerates into a short-term donor project which risks little to no long-term impacts on local or indigenous relationships with the…

In this commentary, we build on Xinying Yin and Gayle Buck's discussion by exploring the cultural practices which are integral to formative assessment, when it is viewed as a sociocultural practice. First we discuss the role of assessment and in particular oral and written formative assessments in both western and Samoan cultures, building on the…

In their work with teachers and community members in Kenya, Cassie Quigley and colleagues seek to localize the "wicked problems" (Churchman in "Manag Sci" 14(4):141-142, 1967) of environmental sustainability through the use of decolonizing methods to challenge top-down approaches to solution-generation in the bountiful yet…

Sharada Gade, in drawing on her long association with a mathematics teacher in Sweden, theorises the complexities of the teacher-researcher collaboration as an expansive learning activity that has developed over time. In this paper, an alternate reading of the teacher-researcher collaboration is offered, one that adds to the analysis provided by…

This paper proposes a study of the various ways in which social and ethical issues are integrated in the curricula of nanoscience and nanotechnology master degrees. During the last decade, new types of courses have appeared in science and technology universities, first in the United States and now reaching Europe and France, associating a call for…

How do you recognize an effective teacher's sociocultural consciousness? Tamara Wallace's and Brenda Brand's argument that sociocultural consciousness is the "brain" of effective culturally responsive instruction for students of color comes at a time when the system of teacher evaluation is being overhauled nationwide.…

Katherine Fogelberg's insightful study of the messages of zoo signs describes the complex, sometimes contradictory nature of the messages they communicate. The construction and content of signs are influenced by institutional power. Fogelberg argues that the creation of zoo signage designed to inform the public can, through its messages,…

This review essay focuses on Özgür Taskin's discussion of the theory of evolution (TOE), intelligent design (ID) and the convictions of fundamentalist science educators and students in his paper entitled: "An exploratory examination of Islamic values in science education: Islamization of science teaching and learning via…