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The Nature of Science is highly topical among science teacher educators and researchers. Increasingly, it is a mandated topic in state curriculum documents. This book draws together recent research on Nature of Science studies within a historical and philosophical framework suitable for students and teacher educators. Traditional science curricula and textbooks present science as a finished product. Taking a different approach, this book provides a glimpse of \"science in the making\" - scientific practice imbued with arguments, controversies, and competition among rival theories and explanations. Teaching about \"science in the making\" is a rich source of motivating students to engage creatively with the science curriculum. Readers are introduced to \"science in the making\" through discussion and analysis of a wide range of historical episodes from the early 19th century to early 21st century. Recent cutting-edge research is presented to provide insight into the dynamics of scientific progress. More than 90 studies from major science education journals, related to nature of science are reviewed. A theoretical framework, field tested with in-service science teachers, is developed for moving from 'science in the making' to understanding the Nature of Science.

Do you lack confidence in teaching the more difficult areas of primary science?Do you want accessible, well structured support?Yes? Then this handy book is for you...It provides a combination of engaging, practical lesson ideas and subject knowledge to help you teach the trickiest parts of primary science such as materials and their properties, magnetism, circuits, forces and life processes.Using strategies that have been successfully used in primary school classrooms, it explains the most difficult topics in a simple, non-technical style. It includes a range of accessible ideas, hints and tips with a focus on providing a skills-based, problem-solving approach to learning.Each topic area includes advice on: How to link the topic with other areas of learningIdentifying and challenging common misconceptionsHow to effectively pre-assess the learners' ideas to best meet their needsPractical activities for challenging and developing children's ideasExplanatory models to help pupils consolidate their understandingThis book provides friendly support and guidance to anyone teaching or training to teach primary science.

Too many universities remain wedded to outmoded ways of teaching science in spite of extensive research showing that there are much more effective methods. Too few departments ask whether what happens in their lecture halls is effective at helping students to learn and how they can encourage their faculty to teach better. But real change is possible, and Carl Wieman shows us how it can be done. Improving How Universities Teach Science distills Wieman's unparalleled experience in a blueprint for educators seeking sustainable improvements in science teaching. Wieman created the Science Education Initiative (SEI), a program implemented across thirteen science departments at the universities of Colorado and British Columbia, to support the widespread adoption of the best research-based approaches to science teaching. The program's data show that in the most successful departments 90 percent of faculty adopted better methods. Wieman identifies what factors helped and hindered the adoption of good teaching methods. He also gives detailed, effective, and tested strategies for departments and institutions to measure and improve the quality of their teaching while limiting the demands on faculty time. Among all of the commentary addressing shortcomings in higher education, Wieman's lessons on improving teaching and learning stand out. His analysis and solutions are not limited to just one lecture hall or course but deal with changing entire departments and universities. For those who want to improve how universities teach science to the next generation, Wieman's work is a critical first step.-- Provided by publisher

Dialogical Argumentation and Reasoning in Elementary Science Classrooms explores how argumentation emerges and develops in and from classroom interactions by focusing on thinking and reasoning through/in relations with others and the learning environment.

This book re-examines the dichotomy between the everyday and the disciplinary in mathematics and science education, and explores alternatives to this opposition from points of view grounded in the close examination of complex classroom events. It makes the case that students' everyday experience and knowledge in their entire manifold forms matter crucially in learning sciences and mathematics. The contributions of 13 research teams are organized around three themes: 1) the experiences of students in encounters with everyday matters of a discipline; 2) the concerns of curriculum designers, including teachers, as they design activities intended to focus on everyday matters of a discipline; and 3) the actions of teachers as they create classroom encounters with everyday matters of a discipline. As a whole the volume reflects the shift in the field of educational research in recent years away from formal, structural models of learning toward emphasizing its situated nature and the sociocultural bases of teaching and learning. At least two trends--increasing awareness that formal theories can be useful guides but are always partial and provisional in how they disclose classroom experiences, and the widespread availability of video and audio equipment that enables effortless recording of classroom interactions--have reoriented the field by allowing researchers and teachers to look at learning starting with complex classroom events rather than formal theories of learning. Such examinations are not meant to replace the work on general theoretical frameworks, but to ground them in actual complex events. This reorientation means that researchers and teachers can now encounter the complexity of learning and teaching as lived, human meaning-making experiences. Immersion in this complexity compels rethinking assumptions about the dichotomies that have traditionally organized the field's thinking about learning. Further, it has important implications for how the relationship between theory and practice in understanding teaching and learning is viewed. Everyday Matters in Science and Mathematics: Studies of Complex Classroom Events is an important resource for researchers, teacher educators, and graduate students in mathematics and science education, and a strong supplemental text for courses in these areas and also in cognition and instruction and instructional design. Contents: Preface. Introduction. Part I: Experiences of Students in Encounters With Everyday Matters of Science and Mathematics. S. Monk, \"Why Would Run Be in Speed?\" Artifacts and Situated Actions in a Curricular Plan. R. Nemirovsky, Mathematical Places. C. Valentine, T.P. Carpenter, M. Pligge, Developing Concepts of Justification and Proof in a Sixth-Grade Classroom. B. Warren, M. Ogonowski, S. Pothier, \"Everyday\" and \"Scientific\": Rethinking Dichotomies in Modes of Thinking in Science Learning. Part II: Actions of Teachers as They Participate in the Creation of Classroom Encounters With Everyday Matters of Science and Mathematics. K. McClain, The Mathematics Behind the Graph: Discussions of Data. E. Forman, E. Ansell, Creating Mathematics Stories: Learning to Explain in a Third-Grade Classroom. M.L. Blanton, J.J. Kaput, Instructional Contexts That Support Students' Transition From Arithmetic to Algebraic Reasoning: Elements of Tasks and Culture. Part III: Concerns of Curriculum Designers as They Develop Activities Intended to Focus on Everyday Matters of Science and Mathematics. E. Feijs, Constructing a Learning Environment That Promotes Reinvention. J.L. Cartier, C.M. Passmore, J. Stewart, J.P. Willauer, Involving Students in Realistic Scientific Practice: Strategies for Laying Epistemological Groundwork. A.S. Rosebery, \"What Are We Going to Do Next?\": Lesson Planning as a Resource for Teaching. B.L. Sherin, F.S. Azevedo, A.A. diSessa, Exploration Zones: A Framework for Describing the Emergent Structure of Learning Activities.

The intent of this book is to provide a rich and broad view of the impact of argument-based inquiry in classrooms from the perspective of the teacher. There are two important reasons for such a book. The first is that we as researchers constantly work to present our views of these experiences with the voice of the teachers only being relayed through the perspective of the researcher. We need as a community to listen to what the teachers are telling us. The second reason is that as demands grow to provide opportunities for students to pose questions, make claims, and provide evidence, that is, to think critically and reason like scientists, we need to understand what this looks like from the perspective of the teacher. This book brings together a range of teachers from several countries who have used the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) approach to teach argument-based inquiry. These teachers have all gone through professional development programs and successfully implemented the approach at a high level.

Are you interested in using argument-driven inquiry (ADI) for elementary instruction but just aren't sure how to do it? You aren't alone. \"Argument-Driven Inquiry in Third-Grade Science\" will provide you with both the information and instructional materials you need to start using this method right away. The book is a one-stop source of expertise, advice, and investigations. It's designed to help your third graders work the way scientists do while integrating literacy and math at the same time. \"Argument-Driven Inquiry in Third-Grade Science\" is divided into two basic parts: (1) An introduction to the stages of ADI--from question identification, data analysis, and argument development to evaluating and revising ideas; and (2) A well-organized series of 14 field-tested investigations designed to be much more authentic for instruction than traditional activities. The investigations cover five disciplinary core ideas: motion and stability, molecules and organisms, heredity, biological evolution, and Earth's systems. Using the Student Workbook, your class will explore important content and discover scientific practices. They can investigate questions such as these: What types of objects are attracted to a magnet? Why do wolves live in groups? And what was the ecosystem like 49 million years ago in Darmstadt, Germany? This book is part of NSTA's best-selling series about ADI in middle school and high school science. Like its predecessors, this collection is designed to be easy to use, with teacher notes, investigation handouts, and checkout questions. The lessons also support the \"Next Generation Science Standards\" and the \"Common Core State Standards\" for English language arts and mathematics. The book can also help emerging bilingual students meet the English Language Proficiency Standards. Many of today's elementary school teachers--like you--want new ways to engage students in scientific practices and help students learn more from classroom activities. \"Argument-Driven Inquiry in Third-Grade Science\" does all of this while giving students the chance to practice reading, writing, speaking, and using mathematics in the context of science.