Successfully combining youth development with workforce preparation means creating opportunities for work-based learning, where youth are learning workplace skills through work rather than learning about a specific career path. This paper summarizes the ways in which workforce skills such as communication, critical thinking, leadership, and teamwork can be cultivated through three types of program models: “value-added,” “growing your own,” and employer partnerships.
What are the core ideas of learning genetics? How can we build coherent learning experiences to support these ideas? Learning progressions are an approach to outline how learners come to understand abstract concepts over time. This article describes a learning progression that promotes understanding of genetics from late elementary school into high school.
A 40-minute inquiry lesson comprising demonstration, proposal, experiment, and report to 224 ninth-grade students organized by the author provided evidence that situational interest can be developed through such activities compared to copying notes from the text and during the lecture. Situational interest, generated by the aspects of a specific situation (e.g., a spectacular demonstration may arouse students’ interest temporarily, even if they are not normally interested in science), is a short-time interest. Although it is a transient occurrence, the author’s previous findings suggest that
The formal introduction of learners to scientific phenomena is accompanied by the need to reconcile what they are being taught in classrooms with their informal or pre-existing conceptualizations of the same phenomena. Reconciled formal and informal conceptualizations represent what the authors of this study refer to as “conceptual continuity,” which, they argue, is an important asset for science educators seeking to support students’ conceptual development. In this paper, authors studied the ways in which high-school baseball players expressed their understanding of how curveballs curve using
Size and scale are important concepts across disciplines, particularly with recent advances at the very large and very small ends of the continuum, which are also hard to teach and understand. Since not much is known about how people develop a sense of linear size and scale, particularly for children with visual impairments, the authors compared their accuracy to that of normal students, as well as examined their experiences learning about size in- and out-of-school. The authors speculate that educators may find students with visual impairments to have unique accessibility to concepts of the
This article describes an afterschool science program targeting girls from communities underrepresented in the sciences. The authors argue for the need for such programs to build on research findings that are relevant to girl-specific programs, which they summarize in the article. This article provides a highly condensed overview of research findings and illustrates how the authors have applied these findings to their program design. It could be of interest to ISE educators seeking to design STEM programs for girls.
The nature of science—not only what science involves, but also how it is understood by students—is a well-established area of research. Findings have long informed policy directives and the design of teaching and learning materials. Students’ understanding of the nature of technology, meanwhile, is less widely studied, yet such an understanding is arguably essential for active participation in a technology-rich and information-driven society. In order to examine students’ understanding of technology and thereafter to develop effective approaches to supporting engagement, educators need a
How do students make connections between in-school and out-of school contexts? In this study involving the analysis of questionnaire responses of 1014 11th and 12th graders, the author found that out-of-school experiences are positively associated with the learning outcomes of science learning achievement, science interest, and self-efficacy. However, the analysis also showed that connections made by teachers to out-of-school experiences negatively correlated with student achievement.
In this study, researchers compared two different forms of inquiry, guided and open. The authors found that open inquiry was more effective than guided inquiry in building students' understanding about scientific procedures. For example, students engaged in open inquiry gained insights into the ways that scientists need to adjust their studies as new information or problems arise. The findings of this research will be of interest to ISE educators who are integrating inquiry-based instruction into their programs.
A study contrasting scientific reasoning skills of students with limited knowledge of the domain against more expert groups found little difference in nature of hypothesising and experimentation, but their lack of domain knowledge hindered non-experts' abilities to develop and test models. Findings highlight the need for support to understand models and organize knowledge.
This study is relevant to educators seeking to expand science practices and discourse in their programs for youth. The author finds that a lack of understanding of everyday communication patterns of African-American students leads many science teachers to shut down students just as they are beginning to express interest and active involvement in the science classroom. The result may be orderly looking classrooms, but the youth have in fact “checked out” and are merely following procedures. This paper presents a framework for analyzing various levels of authentic involvement in the science
This study suggests that the assessment of students’ understanding of scientific vocabulary, concepts, and reasoning associated with the greenhouse effect may be better accomplished by observing and understanding learners’ developing language use over time. The indication of previous research that students hold tenacious misconceptions may be an artifact of the questionnaires used. The authors argue that listening to student conversations is the key to better recognize learning. This paper can help ISE educators think more deeply about how and when to assess for student understanding