Students who aim to become physics teachers for secondary education partake in physics courses together with other physics students. The aim of this study is to understand what is valued, taken for granted, and possibly reproduced in physics teaching given for future secondary school physics teachers. This study is based on observations in…

Promoting student understanding of biological concepts is a key part of biology education, and the ability to "understand" a concept forms one of the six categories of the oft-used Bloom's Taxonomy. Despite this, there remains no consensus as to what it means to understand a concept. While several formal definitions have been offered, we…

This paper highlights an investigation of how middle school students responded to a theatre performance designed to portray science as a humanistic and relatable endeavour that youth -- similar to the youth in the audience -- engage in during their everyday lives. The play included in this study was generated as a part of a design research project…

Scientific research activity (SRA) of the future nature subject teachers during university studies is a significant their professionality/skilfulness component. Teacher research activity at school and education quality improvement are directly related. On the other hand, teacher as a researcher (research) competence is formed not only during…

The number of students in the United States choosing science, technology, engineering or mathematics careers is declining at a time when demand for these occupations is rapidly increasing. Numerous efforts have been undertaken to reverse this trend, yet results are uncertain. One's attitude is key to many choices one makes, and this includes, for…

This paper draws on the personal experiences of three researchers: an "outsider" (or western-oriented) science teacher, a science teacher educator who has lived in Melanesian countries for almost a decade, and a national researcher who was born and educated in Melanesia. During a recent interpretative research study of the problematic…

Examining how the researcher's personal experience shapes the research context was the object of this exploration into the parallel paths of the researcher and research subject. The subject, a preservice science teacher, was studied from her last year of an undergraduate teacher education program through her student teaching experience in an…

Although there have been numerous studies that indicate the benefits of teachers and students working with scientists, there is little research that documents scientists' views of science education, science teacher preparation, and the goals of science education. Furthermore, little is known about how scientists' views of science education may…

Collaborating closely with a 10th-grade science teacher, we designed a Web-based learning environment (Web-LE) to improve student motivation to learn science. Factors believed to enhance intrinsic motivation (challenge, control, curiosity, and fantasy) were integrated into the instructional design of the Web-based learning tool. The Web-LE was…

In this paper I examine the phenomenon of university teachers as researchers in their own classrooms. I use examples of three research teams in which we studied: (1) student response to a science and society course; (2) teacher and student perceptions of inquiry in a physics course; and (3) teaching and learning about the nature of science in an…

This study reports on the improvement of a teacher researcher's teaching practice by adopting a constructivist teaching approach. Four biology units on the nervous system, human circulatory system, evolution, and vertebrate classification were selected to illustrate a model of biology teaching. Data were drawn from student responses to…

The new Science and Technology Curriculum Framework recently issued in Taiwan advocates the teaching of integrated science and technology with greater emphasis on basic skills. Science teachers are not used to teach in this way, they need different abilities and skills in order to do so. Using various effective professional development strategies,…