Science

Marcum-Dietrich, N., Kerlin, S., Staudt, C., & Daniels, M. (2018). Our watershed. The Science Teacher, 85(2).

Marcum-Dietrich, N., Kerlin, S., Staudt, C., & Daniels, M. (2018). Our watershed. The Science Teacher, 85(2).

Marcum-Dietrich, N., Kerlin, S., Staudt, C., & Daniels, M. (2018). Our watershed. The Science Teacher, 85(2).

We describe a four-step strategy used in our professional development program to help elementary science teachers recognize and create lesson plans with coherent conceptual storylines. The conceptual storyline of a lesson refers to sequencing its scientific concepts and activities to help students develop a main scientific idea and, often, is an implicit component of a lesson plan.

Measurement is paired with data as a fundamental domain of K–grade 5 mathematics in the Common Core State Standards, and it is one of five core content areas in NCTM’s Principles and Standards for School Mathematics. This book presents lively activities that dovetail with standards and research-based stages of development to support students’ steady growth of understanding of measurement.

This article summarizes how a group of undergraduate regional university faculty built a program for rigorous and research-based science teacher preparation at the elementary level—namely, the “Model of Research-Based Education for Teachers” (MORE for Teachers). First, we discuss the research upon which the program is built: (1) a preparation infrastructure that includes rigorous content, focused teaching methods, and integrated field experiences with an emphasis on quality mentoring from cooperating teachers and (2) a conceptual framework for how people learn science.

In this study, we investigated how high school credit recovery students worked in small groups and used computer-based scaffolds to conduct scientific inquiry in a problem-based learning unit centered on water quality. We examined how students searched for and evaluated information from different sources, and used evidence to support their claims. Data sources included screen recordings, interviews, scaffold trace data, and scaffold entry quality ratings. Findings indicate that many students struggled to use the scaffolding and did not fully respond to scaffold prompts.