This volume reflects upon how learners engage in the processes of problem solving and critical thinking by exploring the critical theories that undergird these processes; and this chapter introduces practitioners of educational technology to the contents of the book. The discourse of this text relates criticism and PBL to current trends in educational research. In addition to the broader context of the volume, this first chapter quickly summarizes the content of each remaining chapter. This text puts forward criticism as a lens for viewing the work that educators do, in terms of instructional design as well as the assessment of those activities. The result is learning that reflects more successfully the needs of our society: critical-thinking abilities and problem-solving skills.

This chapter concludes The role of criticism in understanding problem solving. In it, the overall message of the book—that criticism and critical theories can serve to aid critical reading and synthesis of the educational technology research literature—is summarized. One of the strengths of the educational technology field is its interdisciplinarity. As students enter the field from many different academic disciplines, they should be encouraged to apply not just the content of their former disciplines but also the strategies of and frameworks for thinking about problems.

Introductory biology courses form a cornerstone of undergraduate instruction. However, the predominantly used lecture approach fails to produce higher-order biology learning. Research shows that active learning strategies can increase student learning, yet few biology instructors use all identified active learning strategies. In this paper, we present a framework to design biology instruction that incorporates all active learning strategies. We review active learning research in undergraduate biology courses, present a framework for organizing active learning strategies, and provide clear implications and future research for designing instruction in introductory undergraduate biology courses.

Problem solving is an important skill in the knowledge economy. Research indicates that the development of problem solving skills works better in the context of instructional approaches centered on real-world problems. But students need scaffolding to be successful in such instruction. In this paper I present a conceptual framework for understanding the effects of scaffolding. First, I discuss the ultimate goal of scaffolding—the transfer of responsibility—and one way that scholars have conceptualized promoting this outcome (fading). Next, I describe an alternative way to conceptualize transfer of responsibility through the lens of distributed cognition and discuss how this lens informs how to promote transfer of responsibility. Then I propose guidelines for the creation of problem solving scaffolds to support transfer of responsibility and discuss them in light of the literature.

Despite evidence that it can help students learn higher-order thinking skills and gain deep content knowledge, problem-based learning (PBL) is not deployed on a large scale in K-12 classrooms. This conceptual chapter explores teacher’s past experiences, and resulting habitus, to explain the minimal extent of PBL in K-12 schools. Central to teachers’ abilities to implement PBL is their ability to provide scaffolding, and their habitus may interfere with this process. Implications for teacher education and teacher change are discussed.

The concept of criticism as a tool for research, although well established in other educational research traditions, is not well established in the domain of Educational Technology. This book changes all that by substantiating criticism as a way to step back and critically evaluate an educational intervention within educational technology. Doing so provides an valuable approach for researchers in terms of guiding meta analyses and theoretical studies, preventing the proverbial "spinning of the wheels" that often happens in educational research.

Enzyme function is central to student understanding of multiple topics within the biochemistry curriculum. In particular, students must understand how enzymes and substrates interact with one another. This manuscript describes the development of a 15-item Enzyme–Substrate Interactions Concept Inventory(ESICI) that measures student understanding of enzyme–substrate interactions. The validity and reliability of ESICI data were established through multiple methods. Results from the administration of the ESICI to biochemistry students across the United States (N = 707) are discussed in terms of instrument quality. The manuscript concludes with suggestions for how to use the ESICI for both teaching and biochemistry education research.

Each DR K-12 project has formative and summative evaluation, which are different from the project’s own R&D activities and instead should support and measure the effectiveness of those activities. This paper discusses evaluation options for investigators and evaluators to consider. Read the full paper for a description of these options.

To foster knowledge use among policy makers or practitioners requires a substantial effort that invests in sustained interaction and enlists a range of supports for the prospective knowledge users. This paper discusses some options for more effective dissemination efforts that could lead to knowledge use. Read the full paper for a description of these options.