Science

Students’ inaccurate ideas about what is represented by chemical equations and concepts underlying stoichiometry are well documented; however, there are few classroom-ready instructional solutions to help students build scientifically accurate ideas about these topics central to learning chemistry. An intervention (two inquiry-based activities) was developed, piloted, and evaluated with common misconceptions in mind.

This book focuses on the preparation of secondary science teachers to teach science to English Learners (EL) and is based on the SSTELLA (Secondary Science Education with English Language and Literacy Acquisition) project that has been implemented in four pre-service teacher education programs in Arizona, California and Texas, all states with large populations of EL.

This commentary highlights key themes across the five chapters of this volume, as well as offers specific recommendations concerning future directions for inquiry on the issue of family–school connections. A case is made that in order to advance scientific knowledge of this issue and its application, dialogue is sorely needed that is multidisciplinary, engages mixed methods and emic traditions, and attends to how context shapes family–school connections.

Supporting Secondary Students in Building External Models is a collaborative project with Michigan State University and the Concord Consortium, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to examine how to support secondary school students in constructing and revising models to explain scientific phenomena and design solutions to problems. This article describes the project and research plans.

Damelin, D., & Krajcik, J. (2016). Supporting secondary students in building external models to explain phenomena. @Concord, 20(1), 10-11.

Supporting Secondary Students in Building External Models is a collaborative project with Michigan State University and the Concord Consortium, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to examine how to support secondary school students in constructing and revising models to explain scientific phenomena and design solutions to problems. This article describes the project and research plans.

Damelin, D., & Krajcik, J. (2016). Supporting secondary students in building external models to explain phenomena. @Concord, 20(1), 10-11.

This brief article provides an overview of how to use the SageModeler systems modeling tool with an ocean acidification model as an example.

Damelin, D. (2016). Monday's lesson: Students making models. @Concord, 20(2), 7.

This study sought to identify specific types of discussion-based strategies that two successful high school physics teachers using a model-based approach utilized in attempting to foster students’ construction of explanatory models for scientific concepts.

This study investigates student interactions with simulations, and teacher support of those interactions, within naturalistic high school classroom settings. Two lesson sequences were conducted, one in 11 and one in 8 physics class sections, where roughly half the sections used the simulations in a small group format and matched sections used them in a whole class format.

Background Inclusive STEM (traditionally known to stand for “Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math”) high schools are emerging across the country as a mechanism for improving STEM education and getting more and diverse students into STEM majors and careers. However, there is no consensus on what these schools are or should be, making it difficult to both evaluate their effectiveness and scale successful models. We addressed this problem by working with inclusive STEM high school leaders and stakeholders to articulate and understand their intended school models.

Assessing both knowledge of Earth science concepts and students’ scientific evaluations in making sense of these concepts is important to gauge understanding. In the Model- Evidence Link (MEL) diagram activities, students engage with Earth science content knowledge and evaluate the connections between evidence and alternative explanations. We have developed a rubric for assessing the quality of student evaluations when engaging in the MEL activity, specifically in the written explanations about the connections between evidence and explanations.