In practical work focussing on conceptual development, students spend valuable in-class time on collecting data rather than making sense out of it. This provides a barrier to learning about the targeted concept. To address this problem, we developed an approach that we coin "collaborative data collection." Using a practical on the topic…

This paper describes the design, implementation, and evaluation of an inquiry-based laboratory for sophomore-level organic chemistry into a mostly cookbook, existing laboratory curriculum. For the laboratory, students were required to generate their own procedures and use their own recorded data from prior laboratory assignments to identify an…

School closures in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic led to kids asking pertinent questions about why they were not in school, especially some students suffering financial hardship. Virtual classrooms became the mundane venues for students to piece together the pandemic puzzle and unpack unseen inequities. This article examines disparities that…

In response to the Coronavirus-19 pandemic, higher education institutions quickly moved to emergency remote learning, and most human subjects research came to an immediate halt. Chemistry education researchers who wanted to continue data collection were confronted by many challenges, including research designs and data collection methods that had…

We present an Arduino approach to collect pressure and temperature data from electronic sensors. Using a constant volume-metal-vessel immersed in a water bath and changing its temperature, we measure the pressure as a function of the temperature inside the vessel. With this apparatus, it is possible to demonstrate Gay-Lussac's law. Based on…

Despite their increasingly widespread adoption in post-secondary education, scholars and practitioners know very little about the impact of digital data displays on instructors' sense-making and academic planning. In this manuscript, I report the results of comparative case studies of five different introductory physics instructors at three…

Increasingly, learning in science and mathematics is considered in terms of induction into the multimodal language practices of the disciplinary community. A strong strand of research in this tradition has involved students being challenged to invent multimodal language forms, and their ideas refined through structured guidance. Often, however,…

Although research and policy suggest science and mathematics teachers should attend to their student's thinking during instruction, our field has inadequately defined what that means in relation to our ultimate goals for the practice. Here I present a theoretical argument that, in making their definitions, researchers should leverage the ways…

Learning analytics are often formatted as visualisations developed from traced data collected as students study in online learning environments. Optimal analytics inform and motivate students' decisions about adaptations that improve their learning. We observe that designs for learning often neglect theories and empirical findings in learning…

In response to calls for research into effective instruction in the Earth and space sciences, and to identify directions for future research, this systematic review of the literature explores research into instructional approaches designed to facilitate conceptual change. In total, 52 studies were identified and analyzed. Analysis focused on the…

The abrupt shift to distance learning at the onset of the COVID-19 crisis exacerbated inequalities in California's K-12 system and added urgency to an ongoing discussion about the role of high school graduation policy in promoting equitable student outcomes. More rigorous graduation requirements, particularly in math and science, can improve…

The ubiquity of mobile devices makes them well suited for field-based learning experiences that require students to gather data as part of the process of developing scientific inquiry practices. The usefulness of these devices, however, is strongly influenced by the nature of the applications students use to collect data in the field. To…

The Bee Hunt! project and curriculum are designed with cultural and environmental sensitivity in mind. In this project, K-12 students develop their awareness and understanding of science and investigate North American pollinator declines. Bees, butterflies, and other pollinators are integrally connected to the pollination of the world's crops for…

Probabilistic models of expected information gain require integrating prior knowledge about causal hypotheses with knowledge about possible actions that might generate data relevant to those hypotheses. Here we looked at whether preschoolers (mean: 54 months) recognize "action possibilities" (affordances) in the environment that allow them to…

In order to provide a picture of how inquiry is practiced in everyday science classrooms, the articles published in "The Science Teacher" from 1998 to 2007 were analyzed for explicit evidence of features of inquiry. Inquiry was operationally defined by the essential features detailed in "Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards" (NRC…