相关论文: Building Thinking Skills in Pre-service Elementary…
The science content classes for elementary education majors at Winona State University used Learning Assistants for the first time during the 2009 - 2010 academic year. Pre-post information was gathered about the Learning Assistants and the…
We have found that non-STEM majors taking either a conceptual physics or astronomy course at two regional comprehensive institutions score significantly lower pre-instruction on the Lawson's Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning (LCTSR) in…
Student content knowledge and general reasoning abilities are two important areas in education practice and research. However, there hasn't been much work in physics education that clearly documents the possible interactions between content…
The large number of published articles in physics journals under the title "Comments on ..." and "Reply to ..." is indicative that the conceptual understanding of physical phenomena is very elusive and hard to grasp even to experts, but it…
The rapid advancement of technology and science education demands innovative approaches to develop students' critical and creative thinking skills. However, there is limited systematic evidence about the effectiveness of different physics…
Current concerns over reforming engineering education have focused attention on helping students develop skills and an adaptive expertise. Phenomenological guidelines for instruction along these lines can be understood as arising out of an…
In this paper I describe an in-class discussion activity aimed at helping elementary education majors in a physical science course think about issues surrounding the inclusion of "Intelligent Design" in public school science standards. I…
Student learning of sound waves can be helped through the creation of group-learning classroom materials whose development and design rely on explicit investigations into student understanding. We describe reasoning in terms of sets of…
Education is a goal-oriented field. But if we want to treat education scientifically so we can accumulate, evaluate, and refine what we learn, then we must develop a theoretical framework that is strongly rooted in objective observations…
Studying Mathematics requires a synthesis of skills from a multitude of academic disciplines; logical reasoning being chief among them. This paper explores mathematical logical preparedness of students entering first year university…
This article describes some collaborative activities of the authors, aimed at improving science education in elementary schools. These include curriculum enhancement, development of new apparatus (a wind tunnel), science-education web site…
English Language Learners (ELLs) are frequently left on the periphery of classroom interactions. Due to misalignment of language skills, teachers and peers communicate with these students less often, decreasing the number of opportunities…
Understanding size and scale (USS) and order-of-magnitude reasoning (OMR) are critical for scientific literacy. This study examines an educational approach to enhance these skills in high school science, considering the cognitive…
Scientific argumentation is a core science and engineering practice and a necessary 21st Century workforce skill. Due to the nature of large enrollment classes, it is difficult to individually assess students and provide feedback on their…
Science education at all levels is currently undergoing dramatic changes to its curricula and developing assessments for these new curricula is paramount. We have used the basis of many of these new changes (scientific practices,…
Writing and argumentation are critical to both professional physics and physics education. However, the skill of making an extended argument in writing is often overlooked in physics classrooms, apart from certain practices like lab…
The Engage to Excel (PCAST) report, the National Research Council's Framework for K-12 Science Education, and the Next Generation Science Standards all call for transforming the physics classroom into an environment that teaches students…
We examine a measure of individual student gain by preservice elementary teachers, related to Richard Hakes use of mean gain in the study of reform classes in undergraduate physics. The gain statistic assesses the amount individual students…
The ability to make decisions based on data, with its inherent uncertainties and variability, is a complex and vital skill in the modern world. The need for such quantitative critical thinking occurs in many different contexts, and while it…
The use of argumentation in education has been shown to improve critical thinking skills for end-users such as students, and computational models for argumentation have been developed to assist in this process. Although these models are…