In science education, there has been a sustained focus on supporting the emergence of science practices in K-12 and field-based settings. Recent work has elevated the integral role of emotion in sparking and sustaining such disciplinary practices, deepening the field's understanding of what is entailed in "doing" science. Yet even as we…

Children are very curious about the world around them. You may find them peering at tadpoles in a pond, counting ants on a log, or wondering about the stars, the sun, and the moon. I have been asked many times: Is the moon really made of cheese? Do astronauts live on the moon? Why does the moon look different every time I look up? Introducing…

According to the National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education (2018), only 16% of the elementary teachers surveyed reported including hands-on activities in all or most of their lessons. Strategies that engage students in hands-on investigations help improve student achievement (Minner, Levy, and Century 2010) and provide students with a…

Elementary science education calls on teachers to facilitate student learning of the content of science while they engage in the work of scientists. Additionally, recent national and state standards incorporate the practices of engineering into science education throughout grades K-12. However, many practicing teachers receive little to no…

In this study, the Maker Competency Instrument (MCI) was developed to diagnose the level of Maker Competence of elementary and secondary students in South Korea. First, in this study, a draft of the test tool was adapted based on the Maker Competency Model developed as part of Yoon et al.'s research (2018). Then, two expert-level Delphi surveys…

The work of teaching includes many in-the-moment decisions for teachers to make. In this study, we focused on the decisions prospective teachers made within the elementary context specific to shared teaching practice in mathematics and science instruction -- elicit and use evidence of student thinking. Within a qualitative multisite case study, we…

Promoting a functional scientific literacy entails preparing people to effectively engage and make decisions regarding real-world socioscientfic issues (SSI) through consideration of the relevant products and processes of science, as well as social, cultural, environmental, and ethical factors. Students can develop a functional scientific literacy…

In recent decades a body of research has emerged supporting the effectiveness of a plethora of science teaching practices in improving learners' science achievement and scientific literacy. However, if the benefits of evidence-based science practice are to be realised consistently and at scale we need to improve our understanding of how teachers…

What does a scientist do? What is an engineer? What is technology? What do mathematicians do? Questions about the nature of STEM are fundamental to help elementary students gain a deep understanding of the STEM disciplines. Yet, starting a lesson with such abstract questions can be difficult for any learner. Instead, teachers can use concrete STEM…

The authors think it is likely that there is no 'right' way to teach. They believe that some teaching approaches work better in some situations to achieve some goals. In this article the authors are proposing that the best way to improve primary science is for colleagues with different views to talk more -- and listen more. Specifically, the…

This quantitative causal-comparative study investigated the growth performance scores of English learners in grades three through five in reading, mathematics, and science in four English language educational programs: English as Second Language (ESL), Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE), Dual-Language Immersion (DLI), and No Services. I used…

There is a considerable amount of research on the nature and effectiveness of modeling as applied to student learning in science. However, few studies have examined the role of students' epistemic uncertainty in modeling and how teachers collaborate with students to recognize and utilize it as a pedagogical resource to support productive struggle…

Science reforms in national K-12 science education standards position engineering as a discipline that can be productively integrated into science curricula. This integrated approach presents science as foundational to engineering and engineering as a tool to contextualize and reinforce science ideas such that students come to develop…

Forces and motion are at the heart of physics and children start learning from the moment they are able to interact with the world. Children as young as one year show surprise when a ball does not behave as expected. This is a tremendous bonus to learning physics, but it has hidden dangers: they only learn how things move on the Earth, where we…

Teacher summative judgements of children's attainment in science, which are statutory at age 11 in England, require consideration of both valid sampling of the construct and reliable comparison of outcomes. In order to develop understanding of the enacted 'trade off' between validity and reliability, this three-year case study, within the Teacher…