Educative curriculum materials present a promising mechanism for promoting more ambitious science teaching in elementary classrooms, including engaging students in science practices. Integrating science practices with science content is emphasized in new education reforms. Elementary teachers, however, face challenges in engaging children in…

Few research studies have examined postintervention data from professional development interventions on science teaching and learning. Given the limited research, it is recommended that more studies examine the lasting effects of science professional development on teachers and students. The purpose of this current study was to examine the…

Teaching children about circuits and the way electricity works is a "tricky business" because it is invisible. Just imagine all eyes are on the teacher as he or she produces for the class what looks like a ping-pong ball and then, with a wave of their hand, the incredible happens! This wonderful white sphere begins to glow red and a…

Over a quarter of British households now own at least one tablet device, an increase of 63% in the 12 months from February 2013 (Internet Advertising Bureau UK, 2014). This trend has expanded into the classroom, with more schools either providing their pupils with an individual tablet device or encouraging parents to purchase them outright or via…

During a final seminar with BA year 4 science specialist trainee teachers, the authors posed a question about the difficulties associated with understanding magnetism. The ensuing discussion focused on a number of concerns commonly identified by students, which may also be of interest to classroom teachers teaching magnetism. Issues raised…

"MyScience" is a primary science education initiative in which being in a community of practice is integral to the learning process. This paper describes the ongoing journey to date of eight primary teachers from three primary schools who actively participated in "MyScience" over an extended period. Their views of interactions…

The nature of science (NOS) describes what science is and how knowledge in science is developed (NSTA 2013). To develop elementary students' understandings of how scientists explore the world, the authors--an education professor and a third-grade teacher--endeavored to integrate NOS into a third-grade life science unit. Throughout the lesson,…

Elementary students in grade two make sense of science ideas and knowledge through their contextual experiences. Mattis Lundin and Britt Jakobson find in their research that early grade students have sophisticated understandings of human anatomy and physiology. In order to understand what students' know about human body and various systems,…

Introducing concepts through an integrated science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) approach can promote interest and motivation (Bennett, Lubben and Hogarth, 2007; Bybee, 2010). However, implementing such an approach effectively in a classroom setting, with relevant links, is a challenging task. Some concepts lend themselves more…

In this project, teachers use mini-speeches, or monologues, as if told by famous scientists from the past, as a springboard to motivate children to think about these scientists as everyday people. The introductory speech describes or introduces the kinds of behaviours, skills, and knowledge the scientists possessed. Talking about the way they…

Technology use in science classes can enhance lessons and reinforce scientific content. The creation of multimedia projects is a great way to engage students in lessons about estuarine ecosystems. In this activity, students can learn about estuarine organisms and use their creativity to write a story, create artwork, and develop a multimedia…

This classroom observation study explored how science teachers (N = 22) teach for creativity in grades 5-10 in Oman. We designed an observation form with 4 main categories that targeted the instructional practices related to teaching for creativity: questioning strategy, teacher's responses to students' ideas, classroom activities to support…

Students used a compass trail to show how they could perform service to their school. When students performed service learning, they completed a real task that was needed for a grateful audience conjoined with academic content in the lesson. Students worked on the school grounds and used content from their regular curriculum while looking for…

In this study, an integrated gaming and multistage guiding approach was proposed for conducting in-field mobile learning activities. A mobile learning system was developed based on the proposed approach. To investigate the interaction between the gaming and guiding strategies on students' learning performance and motivation, a 2 × 2 experiment was…

This article has two aims: (a) to offer a new model for a teacher preparation course that features reflection and teaching as integral, inseparable actions and (b) to provide empirical evidence from an exploratory ethnography to demonstrate teacher development possibilities with this model. The model, termed "Transformative Reflection,"…