A common approach for introducing students to a new science concept is to present them with multiple cases of the phenomenon and ask them to explore. The expectation is that students will naturally take advantage of the multiple cases to support their learning and seek an underlying principle for the phenomenon. However, the success of such tasks depends not only on the structure of the cases, but also the task that students receive for working with the examples. Two studies used contrasting cases in the context of teaching middle-school students about projectile motion. Using a simulation and the same set of cases for all students, students completed a traditional "compare and contrast" approach, or an instructional method called "inventing," where students try to produce a single general explanation. The results show that inventing led to superior learning. Examination of student worksheets revealed that the "compare and contrast" instruction led students to focus mostly on the level of discrete, surface features of the phenomenon. Rather than trying to account for the variation across cases, students simply noticed each instance of it. In contrast, the inventing task led students to consider how the variations across the cases were related. As a result, "invent" students were more likely to search for and find the unifying functional relation. Driving towards an overall explanation is a fundamental tenet of science, and therefore, it is worthwhile to teach students to do the same. Contains tables and figures. [This article was published in "Instructional Science: An International Journal of the Learning Sciences" (EJ1101816).].

How do you get a fourth-grader excited about history? How do you even begin to persuade high school students that mathematical functions are relevant to their everyday lives? In this volume, practical questions that confront every classroom teacher are addressed using the latest exciting research on cognition, teaching, and learning. How Students Learn: History, Mathematics, and Science in the Classroom builds on the discoveries detailed in the bestselling How People Learn. Now, these findings are presented in a way that teachers can use immediately, to revitalize their work in the classroom for even greater effectiveness. Organized for utility, the book explores how the principles of learning can be applied in teaching history, science, and math topics at three levels: elementary, middle, and high school. Leading educators explain in detail how they developed successful curricula and teaching approaches, presenting strategies that serve as models for curriculum development and classroom instruction. Their recounting of personal teaching experiences lends strength and warmth to this volume. The book explores the importance of balancing students' knowledge of historical fact against their understanding of concepts, such as change and cause, and their skills in assessing historical accounts. It discusses how to build straightforward science experiments into true understanding of scientific principles. And it shows how to overcome the difficulties in teaching math to generate real insight and reasoning in math students. It also features illustrated suggestions for classroom activities. How Students Learn offers a highly useful blend of principle and practice. It will be important not only to teachers, administrators, curriculum designers, and teacher educators, but also to parents and the larger community concerned about children's education.

This accessible guide provides practical support on becoming research engaged and research active within the school and beyond. It explores the meaning of research and clarifies multiple types of research which lead to different views on ‘what works’, all whilst showing how to engage with the latest educational findings and how to conduct classroom-based research as part of career-long professional development. Divided into three parts, this book examines the various understandings of being ‘research-engaged’ and covers key issues such as: Finding and interpreting research How to apply and evaluate findings in reliable ways Planning and carrying out a classroom-based project Building a culture of research within a school Establishing local research networks Publishing work Illustrated with inspiring examples of how to these implement ideas in schools, The Teachers’ Guide to Research is perfect for practicing schools teachers, student teachers and educational leaders who are looking to expand their research knowledge and rekindle their professional curiosity.

Problem solving is central to the teaching and learning of chemistry at secondary, tertiary and post-tertiary levels of education, opening to students and professional chemists alike a whole new world for analysing data, looking for patterns and making deductions. As an important higher-order thinking skill, problem solving also constitutes a major research field in science education. Relevant education research is an ongoing process, with recent developments occurring not only in the area of quantitative/computational problems, but also in qualitative problem solving. The following situations are considered, some general, others with a focus on specific areas of chemistry: quantitative problems, qualitative reasoning, metacognition and resource activation, deconstructing the problem-solving process, an overview of the working memory hypothesis, reasoning with the electron-pushing formalism, scaffolding organic synthesis skills, spectroscopy for structural characterization in organic chemistry, enzyme kinetics, problem solving in the academic chemistry laboratory, chemistry problem-solving in context, team-based/active learning, technology for molecular representations, IR spectra simulation, and computational quantum chemistry tools. The book concludes with methodological and epistemological issues in problem solving research and other perspectives in problem solving in chemistry. With a foreword by George Bodner.