Recent social studies research has been lacking in qualitative examinations of life in secondary social studies classrooms. Although there have been a number of suggestions as to how instruction in high school classrooms should proceed, it is rare to find a detailed description of how students actually are taught in such classrooms. This study was…

This paper reports a six month intervention program in two ninth grade science classes and one eleventh grade human biology class. One teacher, one researcher, and 64 students participated in this action research to improve student learning and attitude through training in metacognition. The researcher was a participant observer, who introduced…

One of the clear findings of recent research on the learning of science has been that students who have completed science courses commonly use conceptions held before instruction to interpret natural phenomena. This paper reports on a study of conceptual change in mechanics with particular concern with the nature of student awareness of any…