Recent reforms in K-12 science education call for curricular materials that are designed to be "coherent for students." This form of coherence arises when the classroom community sees their science work as addressing their questions and problems. In enactment, the teacher sometimes has to improvise from the planned trajectory of the…

Learning analytics, referring to the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of data about learners and their contexts in order to optimize learning and the environments in which it occurs, is proving to be a powerful approach for understanding and improving science learning. However, few studies focused on leveraging learning analytics…

This study on the Estonian lower secondary (7-9th grade) science curricula, is seen as an important framework for educators preparing students as tomorrow's citizens able to reflect on sustainable energy development. As the curriculum is taken to be the major document allowing insights into Estonian educational standards, this study identifies…

This article uses key concepts of Anzaldúan philosophy to describe the Mosquitoes & Me summer camp as "ciencia zurda" or "left-handed science." It details a day-in-the-life portrait of Elena, a first-generation Latina middle schooler, as she experiences the opportunities that Mosquitoes & Me provided for self-other…

Three central Virginia school districts and engineering education researchers at the University of Virginia were awarded an Investing in Innovation development grant to design, implement, test, and nationally disseminate a project-based engineering curriculum for middle school students. Referred to as invention kits, the curriculum is developed to…

As digital games become more integrated into education, striking a balance between technology and pedagogy is essential. This study investigates digital games as contexts for problem-based learning (PBL) to actively involve students in problem-solving in a Korean middle school. This study examined two cases (Social Studies and Science) where…

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) claim to be an evolution of previous work. Yet prominent voices in the science education community argue that they are a revolution. This study sought to examine these competing claims by analyzing an older middle school science curriculum through the lens of the NGSS. This analysis demonstrates that…

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a novel scale, the Development and Validation of Out-of-School Learning Environments Perception Scale (OSLEPS), that measures middle school students' perceptions of out-of-school learning environments. A total of 990 middle school students (583 females and 407 males) participated in the study.…

This article reports the development of a two-tier simple electric circuits test (2T-SEC Test). Simple electric circuits are introduced to students early in their school years and are an important part of the physics curriculum all the way to the university level. However, many students do not develop an adequate conceptual understanding of simple…

Previous research found that critical thinking skills of students need to be trained more intensively using authentic problems in daily life. Critical thinking can be developed through problem-based learning as a pedagogical approach in an aligned learning and teaching context. This research aims to obtain the profile of students' critical…

The national K-12 science standards were reformed in April 2013. On March 8, 2017, the state of Louisiana's Board of Elementary and Secondary Education approved the rewrite of the science standards to align with these national standards, and they were implemented in the middle school science classes. In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic began and…

There has been recent interest in how the body can be used as a resource for learning challenging concepts in science and mathematics. This dissertation contributes to this conversation in the literature by focusing on a learning environment that engages students in using their bodies as a resource for learning a particularly challenging science…

Practices that take into account youth and adult education (YAE) are still rare in the literature.The present work applied an investigative activity with YAE students from the last year of middle education, in the discipline of sciences, about the methods of construction of science and tests of variables. From the categorization of metacognitive…

Writing in science can be challenging for all learners, and it is especially so for students with cognitive or language-based learning difficulties. We examined the effects of a cognitive apprenticeship on student disciplinary writing skills as well as near and far transfer of learning outcomes. This instructional approach included a gradual…

Today's students live within a world filled with complexity, uncertainty, and misinformation; thus, educators need to help all learners, including students with learning disabilities, how to comprehend complex information about the natural world and make credible evidence-based claims. Our study is a first step in making this possible. In this…