This report offers guidance for those shaping policy and designing elementary and middle school science and mathematics courses that prepare students to be lifelong users of scientific and mathematical ideas. We have reviewed programs designed to improve elementary and middle school students' understanding of science and mathematics by…

A science program in which students were encouraged to select their own project goal as well as the apparatus to accomplish this goal was developed and tried in two 5th grade classes. (Author)

Discusses whether students can learn science from carefully designed online peer discussions. Contrasts two formats of contributed comments--historical debate and narrative text--and assesses the impact of an asynchronous discussion on student understanding of the nature of light. Reports that students gain integrated understanding of the nature…

Research has shown that technology-enhanced visualizations can improve inquiry learning in science when they are designed to support knowledge integration. Visualizations play an especially important role in supporting science learning at elementary and middle school levels because they can make unseen and complex processes visible. We identify 4…

Discusses whether and how computer programing courses can teach problem solving. Provides results of an integrated set of studies of middle school programing students whose problem solving skills increased in a programing class. Argues that "exemplary" instruction is more efficient than "typical" instruction. Examines the influence of students'…

We conducted two studies of beliefs about laboratory and everyday thermal phenomena. The first study identified concepts of heat energy and temperature held by adolescents, adults, and scientists. We found a classic separation of "school" and "everyday" knowledge in each population. We conducted clinical interviews with 37 middle school students,…

Science educators face constant tradeoffs between allocating time to important topics and including more topics in the curriculum. We study 3,000 students experiencing 4 increasingly streamlined versions of a computer-enhanced middle school thermodynamics curriculum to investigate the impact of instructional time on knowledge integration.…

Students' views of science as static, mixed, and dynamic are characterized. The relationship between views of science and acquisition of integrated understanding of thermodynamics is examined. Students with dynamic views acquired more integrated understanding than those with static views. Data were collected from 153 middle school students who…

When comparing performances across four versions of Computer as Lab Partner curriculum, increases in understanding were found when students predicted outcomes and reconciled results, and students used a heat-flow model of thermodynamics to integrate their experimental results. Argued is that curriculum must explicitly motivate students to…

Discusses: (1) potential advantages of learning computer programing, (2) performances of males and females in middle school programing courses, (3) problems teachers face in achieving this potential, and (4) participation of males and females in programing courses. Results show females, on the average, perform as well as or better than males.…

Examines how students use evidence, determines when they add further ideas and claims, and measures progress in understanding light propagation. Uses the Scaffolded Knowledge Integration (SKI) instructional framework for design decisions. Discusses design studies that test and elaborate on the instructional framework. (Contains 33 references.)…

Contrasts spontaneous and reflective knowledge integration instruction delivered using a computer learning environment to enhance understanding of displaced volume. Distinguishes the impact of instruction on students who believed scientific phenomena are governed by principles (cohesive beliefs) versus students who believed that science is a…

A theoretical perspective is presented for examining conceptual change in adolescence and the social context of learning. A case study of the Computer as Lab Partner project illustrates the following: (1) conceptual and cognitive changes in eighth graders' understanding of physical science concepts; (2) ways concepts are constructed; and (3)…