Science

How can we align activities with instructional goals to support student understanding of matter and materials? The Building a Tower Task is intended to elicit preservice teachers’ CKT about descriptions and appropriate uses of materials based on their properties.

What kinds of questions should guide investigations of matter? The Questions to Investigate task is intended to elicit preservice teachers’ CKT related to asking questions to frame investigations of changes in matter. The task presents a variety of student-posed questions for preservice teachers to evaluate in terms of their quality and appropriateness. The CKT tasks are intended as a complement to your existing instructional activities in order to elicit and probe preservice teachers’ CKT.

What kinds of questions should guide investigations of matter? The Questions to Investigate task is intended to elicit preservice teachers’ CKT related to asking questions to frame investigations of changes in matter. The task presents a variety of student-posed questions for preservice teachers to evaluate in terms of their quality and appropriateness. The CKT tasks are intended as a complement to your existing instructional activities in order to elicit and probe preservice teachers’ CKT.

"Evolution: DNA and the Unity of Life" is an eight-week, comprehensive curriculum unit that sharply illuminates the underlying role of genetics in evolution by maintaining a conceptual connection to DNA and heredity throughout. Through paper-based and interactive multimedia lessons, the unit aligns with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) by engaging students in questioning, using models, identifying patterns, analyzing skill-level appropriate data from published scientific studies, and constructing evidence-based arguments. The unit’s lessons are organized into five modules.

The ASET Science and Engineering Practice (SEP) Tools are designed to guide you to critically analyze how students are meaningfully engaged in the specific components of the SEP that you have selected to focus on for your lesson or unit. These specific components are outlined within the tool for each SEP.

The ASET Toolkit is a Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) planning toolkit designed to help science educators plan lessons and units that integrate the 3 dimensions outlined in the Framework (NRC, 2012). The tools are not meant to be used in isolation, but with peers to promote discourse for understanding the goals and aligning instruction for the NGSS.

This paper examines the use of Imaginative Education (IE) to create an NGSS-aligned middle school engineering curriculum that supports transfer and the development of STEM identity. In IE, cognitive tools—such as developmentally appropriate narratives, mysteries and fantasies—are used to design learning environments that both engage learners and help them organize knowledge productively. We have combined IE with transmedia storytelling to develop two multi-week engineering units and six shorter engineering lessons.

This paper examines the use of Imaginative Education (IE) to create an NGSS-aligned middle school engineering curriculum that supports transfer and the development of STEM identity. In IE, cognitive tools—such as developmentally appropriate narratives, mysteries and fantasies—are used to design learning environments that both engage learners and help them organize knowledge productively. We have combined IE with transmedia storytelling to develop two multi-week engineering units and six shorter engineering lessons.

Although the use of active learning pedagogies in college science courses has been demonstrated to improve student learning and engagement, lecture‐based methods still feature predominantly across university courses. Often lacking meaningful opportunities to learn about and test out new pedagogies, faculty have been slow to adopt and enact new teaching practices. Partnerships in which faculty facilitate teacher professional development may provide an important space for faculty learning and innovation related to college instruction.

Teachers play a critical role in successfully implementing science education reforms in the United States to provide high‐quality science learning opportunities to all students. However, the differentiated ways in which teachers make decisions about their science teaching are not well understood.