In this article, Lyon, Jafri, and St. Louis discuss the limitations of the concept of the “STEM pipeline,” an analogy commonly used in education and policy discussions to describe the academic progression of students from elementary school through higher education in STEM, ideally resulting in employment in a science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) field. Based on a decade of experience with the urban out-of-school time (OST) program Project Exploration, the authors propose a conceptual framework that supports youth development goals in addition to STEM learning. The Youth-Science
This article examines preservice student teachers’ views of students’ prior knowledge, specifically how these views change over time with classroom experience and where they diverge from the beliefs teachers express in their education methods courses. Teachers’ beliefs about student “misconceptions” have implications for the way they teach and for their thinking on how students learn. The observations made in the study offer informal science education (ISE) practitioners a useful reminder about the value of recognizing and building on student misconceptions, an approach that forms the basis of
This paper contributes to a growing body of literature examining ways of supporting teaching and learning of socio-scientific issues (SSIs). Comparing experiences in two schools—one with a monoethnic student population, the other multiethnic—the study finds that both groups of students struggle with meaningful engagement in SSIs.
Do video games have positive impacts on the academic K–12 curriculum? The authors of this paper conducted a literature review of more than 300 research articles on the use of video games in the classroom. Their analysis found minimal evidence that video games have positive effects on mathematics and science learning.
This paper provides an interesting insight into how educators can support learners in coming to understand the nature of matter. Whilst the specific focus is on students’ implicit assumptions and reasoning strategies in a particular domain, the broader discussion exploring the differences between novice and expert thinking is relevant to all educators seeking to support learners to engage with new content.
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
The Internet now plays an important role in education. This paper reviews the current literature on Internet-based science learning environments, focusing in particular on the characteristics of learners that affect the extent of science learning. It offers a useful resource for ISE practitioners who provide online science learning.