Presents a prototype of an instructional task that aims at improved problem-solving skills based on the understanding of domain knowledge. (Author/CCM)

Describes the activities of two prominent science educators who presided over Australian science curriculum reforms during the 1960s and 1970s. Represents the educators' actions as heroic and describe how the Heroes shaped, modified, and united the culture through referents, rituals, and artifacts. Speculates on the importance of heroic activity…

Describes one teacher's first attempt to understand the role of students' self-evaluations of their process and products in a science unit centered upon open-ended projects. Describes the social structure in student group self-evaluation, and explains the important role students' self-evaluations can play as part of an open-ended project learning…

Studies the complex relationship between science and technology. Derives three different interaction patterns from the history of industrial research laboratories: (1) science as enabler for technology; (2) science as a forerunner of technology; and (3) science as a knowledge resource for technology. (Contains 21 references.) (DDR)

Outlines four ways in which the relationship between the learner and everyday technology might be analyzed using early childhood studies as examples. The four individual-technology relationships are described as affording, anchoring, distributing, and appropriating. (Contains 58 references.) (DDR)

This case study describes an instructional approach that may be useful in inquiry-based science classes. It involves adopting a particular discourse orientation that aims at helping pupils value their science learning. The contextual descriptions and interpretation presented can help teachers form images of classroom practices that will be…

The results are described of two case studies on the conceptions and classroom practice of two Portuguese physics and chemistry teachers on the role of problem solving in the teaching/learning of science. One of these teachers was a novice and the other had about 20 years of teaching experience. The data were obtained from a questionnaire, a…

This article discusses the results of a qualitative study, based on case studies, aimed at: (a) assessing a group of Portuguese secondary school natural science teachers regarding their conceptions of the nature, teaching and learning of science; (b) studying possible impacts of recent controversies surrounding scientific and technological issues…

An elementary version of the "Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction" (QTI) and a scale for determining students' "Enjoyment of their Science Lessons" (ENJ) were translated into Standard Malay. This process, together with its initial validation carried out in 136 classrooms with 3,104 students, is described in this paper.…

Although laboratory activities are widely acknowledged as being fundamental to the teaching of science, many secondary science school teachers have limited knowledge of how to design and run effective teaching laboratories. Utilising a situated cognition theoretical framework, we discuss our collaborative efforts to develop a laboratory based…

The results of a large scale (N=1001) cross-sectional (Years 6, 8 and 10) study of students' ideas about the composition of unpolluted air, the nature of air pollution, the biological consequences of air pollution, and about acid rain and the Greenhouse Effect are reported. A range of persistent alternative conceptions were identified, in some…