This paper reports on a study aiming at examining the effect of using digital concept maps in inquiry learning. Digital concept maps were asked to be created in different stages of the inquiry learning sessions to support their investigations. The participants were a total of 24, 10th-grade students enrolled in a chemistry course at a public high…

This study describes the process of defining a hypothetical learning progression (LP) for astronomy around the big idea of "Solar System formation." At the most sophisticated level, students can explain how the formation process led to the current Solar System by considering how the planets formed from the collapse of a rotating cloud of…

One of the four basic language skills of children, writing, is central to expressing themselves and to developing high level thinking capabilities. Competence in writing is a rather complex learning structure in which cognitive and, especially, psycho-motor learning processes are intensively employed and it further needs to be fed by perceptive…

A method for uncovering students' thinking about thinking, specifically their meta-strategic knowledge, is explored within the context of an ongoing, multi-year intervention designed to promote the development of students' thinking dispositions. The development of a concept-map instrument that classroom teachers can use and an analytic framework…

Concept mapping was investigated as a learning strategy to motivate 82 high-ability, 10th-grade students to take a more meaningful approach to learning biology. The study employed a quasi-experimental, prepost mixed methodology design to assess the relationship between concept-mapping proficiency and changes in motivational and learning strategies…