Improving K-12 STEM Education Outcomes through Technological Integration


Book Description

The application of technology in classroom settings has equipped educators with innovative tools and techniques for effective teaching practice. Integrating digital technologies at the elementary and secondary levels helps to enrich the students’ learning experience and maximize competency in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Improving K-12 STEM Education Outcomes through Technological Integration focuses on current research surrounding the effectiveness, performance, and benefits of incorporating various technological tools within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics classrooms. Focusing on evidence-based approaches and current educational innovations, this book is an essential reference source for teachers, teacher educators, and professionals interested in how emerging technologies are benefiting teaching and/or learning efficacy.




Teaching Science in Out-of-School Settings


Book Description

This book explores pedagogical approaches used by informal science educators and botanic garden educators in particular, when teaching science to visiting students (7-12 years old). More specifically, it draws on the sociocultural perspective of learning, and highlights the importance of discourse in learning processes. It examines the interactions between four botanic garden educators (BGEs) and their students, focusing on how the students’ contributions to the talk are followed up on by the BGEs. Moreover, it includes an investigation into which kinds of teaching behaviours on the part of BGEs can best support learning.




Handbook of Research on Science Education


Book Description

Volume III of this landmark synthesis of research offers a comprehensive, state-of-the-art survey highlighting new and emerging research perspectives in science education. Building on the foundations set in Volumes I and II, Volume III provides a globally minded, up-to-the-minute survey of the science education research community and represents the diversity of the field. Each chapter has been updated with new research and new content, and Volume III has been further developed to include new and expanded coverage on astronomy and space education, epistemic practices related to socioscientific issues,design-based research, interdisciplinary and STEM education, inclusive science education, and the global impact of nature of science and scientific inquiry literacy. As with the previous volumes, Volume III is organized around six themes: theory and methods of science education research; science learning; diversity and equity; science teaching; curriculum and assessment; and science teacher education. Each chapter presents an integrative review of the research on the topic it addresses, pulling together the existing research, working to understand historical trends and patterns in that body of scholarship, describing how the issue is conceptualized within the literature, how methods and theories have shaped the outcomes of the research, and where the strengths, weaknesses, and gaps are in the literature. Providing guidance to science education faculty, scholars, and graduate students, and pointing towards future directions of the field, Handbook of Research on Science Education Research, Volume III offers an essential resource to all members of the science education community.




Teachers Creating Context-Based Learning Environments in Science


Book Description

"Context-based science education has led to the transformation of science education in countries all over the world, with changes also visible in learning environments and how these are being shaped. These changes involve authentic problems on research and design, new types of interactions within communities of practice, new content areas and also new challenges for teachers in teaching, motivating, scaffolding and assessing their students, among other things.This book focuses on context-based science education and its resulting changes in the perspective of research on learning environments. It also focuses on the implications for the teachers and the professional development of their competencies and beliefs.The book consists of eleven chapters by experts in various themes surrounding learning environments research and science education, preceded by and concluded with a chapter with reflections on context-based learning environments in science by the editors of this book. The conclusion they draw is that professional development of science teachers may be the most important and the most difficult part of the process of teachers creating context-based learning environments in science, as is the focus in the title of this book."




Handbook of Research on Science Education, Volume II


Book Description

Building on the foundation set in Volume I—a landmark synthesis of research in the field—Volume II is a comprehensive, state-of-the-art new volume highlighting new and emerging research perspectives. The contributors, all experts in their research areas, represent the international and gender diversity in the science education research community. The volume is organized around six themes: theory and methods of science education research; science learning; culture, gender, and society and science learning; science teaching; curriculum and assessment in science; science teacher education. Each chapter presents an integrative review of the research on the topic it addresses—pulling together the existing research, working to understand the historical trends and patterns in that body of scholarship, describing how the issue is conceptualized within the literature, how methods and theories have shaped the outcomes of the research, and where the strengths, weaknesses, and gaps are in the literature. Providing guidance to science education faculty and graduate students and leading to new insights and directions for future research, the Handbook of Research on Science Education, Volume II is an essential resource for the entire science education community.




Reading Images for Knowledge Building


Book Description

This innovative volume provides a new analytic framework for understanding how meaning-making resources are deployed in images designed for knowledge building in school science. The framework enables analyses of science images from the perspectives of both their complexity and recognizability. Complexity deals with the technical and abstract knowledge of school science (technicality), evaluative dispositions in relation to that knowledge (iconization) and the condensation of the technical and dispositional meanings as ‘synoptic eyefuls’ in discipline-specific infographics (aggregation). Recognizability concerns the relationship between the appearance of phenomena in reality and the reconfiguration of this reality in images (congruence), the perceptibility or discernibility of the features and contexts of phenomena in images (explicitness), and how images engage their viewers (affiliation). The framework is illustrated by more than 100 images in colour in the e-book and black and white in the paper version and will inform research into multimodal literacy pedagogy that incorporates an understanding of the role of images in the teaching and learning of school science. This book will be of particular interest to scholars in multimodality, semiotics, literacy education and science education.




Science Education Research and Practice in Europe


Book Description

Each volume in the 7-volume series The World of Science Education reviews research in a key region of the world. These regions include North America, South and Latin America, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Europe, Arab States, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The focus of this Handbook is on science education in Europe. In producing this volume the editors have invited a range of authors to describe their research in the context of developments in the continent and further afield. In reading this book you are invited to consider the historical, social and political contexts that have driven developments in science education research over the years. A unique feature of science education in Europe is the impact of the European Union on research and development over many years. A growing number of multi-national projects have contributed to the establishment of a community of researchers increasingly accepting of methodological diversity. That is not to say that Europe is moving towards homogeneity, as this volume clearly shows.




International Perspectives on Knowledge and Quality


Book Description

Drawing together an international author team from Australia, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden and the UK, this book examines how we might democratize and open up access to 'knowledge of the powerful' for all. This book moves beyond the narrow knowledge vs skills debate of the 20th century to interrogate the epistemic quality of education in schools, and is a valuable resource for reflecting on the design and implementation of teacher education. Based on a range of national studies by the Knowledge and Quality across School Subjects and Teacher Education network (KOSS), funded by the Swedish Research Council (2019-22), the chapters explore teachers' powerful professional knowledge and the implications this has for innovation in teacher education, policy and practice in educational settings.




21st Century Skills Development Through Inquiry-Based Learning


Book Description

This book presents innovative instructional interventions designed to support inquiry project-based learning as an approach to equip students with 21st century skills. Instructional techniques include collaborative team-based teaching, social constructivist game design and game play, and productive uses of social media such as wikis and other online communication affordances. The book will be of interest to researchers seeking a summary of recent empirical studies in the inquiry project-based learning domain that employ new technologies as constructive media for student synthesis and creation. The book also bridges the gap between empirical works and a range of national- and international-level educational standards frameworks such as the P21, the OECD framework, AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner, and the Common Core State Standards in the US. Of particular interest to education practitioners, the book offers detailed descriptions of inquiry project-based learning interventions that can be directly reproduced in today's schools. Further, the book provides research-driven guidelines for the evaluation of student inquiry project-based learning. Lastly, it offers education policymakers insight into establishing anchors and spaces for applying inquiry project-based learning opportunities for youth today in the context of existing and current education reform efforts. The aim of this book is to support education leaders', practitioners' and researchers' efforts in advancing inspiring and motivating student learning through transformative social constructivist inquiry-based knowledge-building with information technologies. We propose that preparing students with inquiry mindsets and dispositions can promote greater agency, critical thinking and resourcefulness, qualities needed for addressing the complex societal challenges they may face.