Middle School Physical Science Research Articles

Predictive Student Modelling in an Online Reading Platform

Use of technology-enhanced education and online learning systems has become more popular, especially after COVID-19. These systems capture a rich array of data as students interact with them. Predicting student performance is an essential part of technology-enhanced education systems to enable the generation of hints and provide recommendations to students. Typically, this is done through use of data on student interactions with questions without utilizing important data on the temporal ordering of students’ other interaction behavior, (e.g., reading, video watching). In this paper, we hypothesize that to predict students’ question performance, it is necessary to (i) consider other learning activities beyond question-answering and (ii) understand how these activities are related to question-solving behavior. We collected middle school physical science students’ data within a K12 reading platform, Actively Learn. This platform provides reading-support to students and collects trace data on their use of the system. We propose a transformer-based model to predict students' question scores utilizing question interaction and reading-related behaviors. Our findings show that integrating question attempts and reading-related behaviors results in better predictive power compared to using only question attempt features. The interpretable visualization of the transformer’s attention can be helpful for teachers to make tailored interventions in students’ learning.

Cultural competence or deficit-based view? A qualitative approach to understanding middle school students\u2019 experience with culturally framed engineering

BackgroundRecent policies have given momentum to the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in the USA and throughout the world. This has resulted in rapid growth in engineering and STEM curricula, many of which incorporate global contexts to frame student experiences; however, little research has been done on the effects of this contextualization. Thus, it is critical to explore the impact of these curricula on student learning and the development of STEM identities, especially those who have historically been marginalized in STEM fields. The purposes of this study are to critically examine how STEM curriculum helps shape students’ perceptions of the underlying cultural context and suggest ways that anti-oppressive education theory can be applied in middle school physical science classrooms. This study draws on classroom observational data and the curriculum text itself to understand how students perceive culture that they do not identify with.ResultsWe found that the curriculum provides very limited perspectives of the non-dominant culture in which the learning was situated. Our results also indicate three emerging themes showing students to be demonstrating an elitist viewpoint, having a narrow view of another culture, or being indifferent toward the embedded cultural context in the lessons. As a class, deficit-based views of the people and places presented in the lesson were created rather than the desired culturally competent views. These negative perceptions were imprinted and solidified through limited portrayal of the embedded culture in the curriculum.ConclusionsThis work highlights the importance of curriculum context in students’ learning. Beliefs about the people and places are created through global context presented in the curriculum. Portrayal of these people and places was not representative of the culture; thus, resulting in limited perceptions of the situated contexts. It is crucial that the teachers critically evaluate the curriculum prior to its implementation to make sure Others are represented appropriately by drawing upon the anti-oppressive education theory. Lastly, we also advocate for the incorporation of global culture in STEM curriculum by having students learn beyond what the written curriculum offers.

Systems, transfer, and fields: Evaluating a new approach to energy instruction

AbstractEnergy is a central concept in science in every discipline and also an essential player in many of the issues facing people everywhere on the globe. However, studies have shown that by the end of K‐12 schooling, most students do not reach the level of understanding required to be able to use energy to make sense of a wide range of phenomena. Many researchers have questioned whether the conceptual foundations of traditional approaches to energy instruction may be responsible for students' difficulties. In response to these concerns, we developed and tested a novel approach to middle school physical science energy instruction that was informed by the recommendations of the Framework for K‐12 Science Education (National Research Council, 2012a) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) (NGSS Lead States, 2013). This new approach differs substantially from more traditional approaches to energy instruction in that it does not require energy forms and it emphasizes connections between energy, systems, and fields that mediate interaction‐at‐a‐distance. We investigated student learning during this novel approach and contrasted it with student learning within a comparable unit based on a more traditional approach to energy instruction. Our findings indicate that students who learned in the new approach outperformed students who learned in the traditional approach in every quantitative and qualitative aspect considered in this study, irrespective of their prior knowledge of energy. They developed more parsimonious knowledge networks in relation to energy that focused primarily around the concept of energy transfer. This study warrants further investigation into the value of this new approach to energy instruction in both middle and high school.

Understanding science teachers\u2019 implementations of integrated STEM curricular units through a phenomenological multiple case study

BackgroundCurrent reforms in K-12 STEM education call for integration between science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Such integration of STEM disciplines at the K-12 level offers students an opportunity to experience learning in real-world, multidisciplinary contexts; however, there is little reported research about teachers’ experiences in engaging in integrated STEM instruction. The purpose of this phenomenological multiple case study is to understand nine science teachers’ first-time experiences in implementing integrated STEM curricular units in their middle school physical science classrooms. This study draws upon both classroom implementation data and teacher reflective interviews to illustrate different degrees of integrated STEM instruction and to understand teachers’ challenges and successes with these varying approaches.ResultsOur results indicate three distinct cases of integration within our sample that represent low, medium, and high degrees of STEM integration throughout curriculum implementations. Interviews with teachers from each case revealed three themes that varied across teachers’ experiences: the nature of integration, choosing between science and engineering, and student engagement and motivation. Teachers in all three cases were challenged to make explicit connections between science, engineering, and mathematics while simultaneously maintaining a motivating and engaging context for their students throughout their instruction. Further, it appears that the degree of STEM integration that occurs in instruction may be related to teachers’ ability to make explicit connections between the disciplines.ConclusionsThe work presented here informs educational researchers, policy makers, and K-12 STEM educators that there are several challenges when it comes to implementing new STEM initiatives in K-12 education. Although this work is limited to middle school physical science teachers’ experiences with first-time STEM instruction, many of the identified themes are not content-specific; therefore, this work may shed light on general struggles that are common to educators who are integrating across content disciplines for the first time.

The Influence of Teachers’ Knowledge on Student Learning in Middle School Physical Science Classrooms

This study examines the relationship between teacher knowledge and student learning for 9,556 students of 181 middle school physical science teachers. Assessment instruments based on the National Science Education Standards with 20 items in common were administered several times during the school year to both students and their teachers. For items that had a very popular wrong answer, the teachers who could identify this misconception had larger classroom gains, much larger than if the teachers knew only the correct answer. On items on which students did not exhibit misconceptions, teacher subject matter knowledge alone accounted for higher student gains. This finding suggests that a teacher’s ability to identify students’ most common wrong answer on multiple-choice items, a form of pedagogical content knowledge, is an additional measure of science teacher competence.

Adaptations and Continuities in the Use and Design of Visual Representations in US Middle School Science Textbooks

Visual representations are ubiquitous in modern‐day science textbooks and have in recent years become an object of criticism and scrutiny. This article examines the extent to which changes in representations in textbooks published in the USA over the past six decades have invited those critiques. Drawing from a correlational analysis of a corpus of 34 US middle school physical science textbooks, continuities are established with respect to the purposes that most textbook images serve and the numbers of schematic representations that are used. Changes are observed in the overall total number of representations in textbooks and in the proportion of representations that are photographic. Interpretive cases of individual representations over time are presented to further illustrate the continuities and changes that have taken place. Specifically, high‐fidelity images, such as photographs, are shown permeating or replacing schematic and explanatory images in the interest of promoting familiarization to students. This shifting emphasis toward familiarization is discussed as a specific cause for concern about quality and utility of representations in modern‐day US science textbooks.

Identification of the Most Critical Content Knowledge Base for Middle School Science Teachers

Much has been said about what science content students need to learn (e.g., Benchmarks for Science Literacy, National Science Education Standards). Less has been said about what science content teachers need to know to teach the content students are expected to learn. This study analyzed four standards documents and assessment frameworks to identify core middle school physical science teacher content knowledge. Analysis across all four documents identified critical middle school physical science content and the relative weightings of this content. This parsimonious selection of content synthesized from these major sources provides guidelines researchers, assessment developers, and professional development providers can use in determining how to expend limited time and other resources.

The problem with answers: An exploration of guided scientific inquiry teaching

Guided scientific inquiry investigations are designed to have students reach particular answers through the thinking processes and activities of scientists. This presents a difficult challenge for teachers who must selectively hold back answers from students to maintain an atmosphere that encourages student-directed inquiry. The present study explores the different ways that three teachers describe and manage this problem with answers in a middle school physical science investigation. While one teacher managed the problem by treating the investigation as a game, another teacher accepted his students' ideas without evaluation, and the third spent considerable time rationalizing his teaching strategies to students. Researchers and policymakers need to explore the role of answers in guided scientific inquiry teaching so that they may better equip practitioners to address these problems when they arise. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed90:453–467, 2006

More Than Texts Need Reform in Middle Schools

In his Physics Today article May 2003, page 50, John Hubisz discusses the results of a review of middle-school science texts. I read the Hubisz report 1 1. J. L. Hubisz, Review of Middle School Physical Science Texts, available online at http://www.psrc-online.org/curriculum/book.html. when it first came out. The basic premise was accurate; opening a random textbook to a random page was about all it took to find several mistakes.But has Hubisz done recent homework to check for signs of change? In particular, has he looked for improvement in the textbook selection process in large, influential states? In 2000, California made significant strides toward improving texts.Hubisz writes, “Publishers aim to satisfy the committees that select texts, even though the members of those committees typically have little knowledge of physical science.” My husband, an excellent chemistry teacher, chaired the California Curriculum Commission’s science subcommittee and oversaw California’s last science book adoption. Every submitted textbook was read first by a content review panel composed of three people, each with a terminal degree in science. Texts were then reviewed more thoroughly by committees of teachers and others. Although a few errors remain in the books that survived to adoption, those errors are much fewer than in previous texts. Some errors persist because of time demands on reviewers and the need to provide teachers and students with tools to meet California’s demanding content standards. For the review criteria used, see reference 22. California State Board of Education, Science Framework for California Public Schools, Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve, California Department of Education, Sacramento, Calif. (1990), p. 300. Relevant section is available online at http://www.cde.ca.gov/cdepress/science-framework/science-framework-pt7.pdf..Yes, texts need to be improved, to become more accurate, more interesting, and less disjointed. Yes, well-crafted laboratory activities need to be encouraged. But more has to happen before all children get a good science education. An important step is to make sure that students can read well enough to take meaning from those texts. Many can’t now, but research-based reading interventions are being developed and implemented. And then the education system will have to deal with pesky student deficiencies in math. These areas especially need improvement if students are to understand and appreciate science. Another reform that is badly needed, particularly at the middle-school level, is to improve teachers’ science content mastery. Even decent books can be undercut if science-ignorant teachers design their own “innovative” lessons. A couple of years ago, I watched students in an eighth-grade class, with their newly adopted textbooks pushed to the side, do an exercise about molecules. The assignment was to take a chemical formula—for example, Fe2O3—and design and color a fanciful molecule based only on the students’ artistic vision. One might argue that eighth grade is not the right time to introduce the details of bonding and molecular geometry, but a teacher who knew such things would never have caused students future confusion by assigning this counterproductive exercise.The problem is multidimensional, and yes, physicists and other scientists should get involved.REFERENCESSection:ChooseTop of pageREFERENCES <<1. J. L. Hubisz, Review of Middle School Physical Science Texts, available online at http://www.psrc-online.org/curriculum/book.html. Google Scholar2. California State Board of Education, Science Framework for California Public Schools, Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve, California Department of Education, Sacramento, Calif. (1990), p. 300. Relevant section is available online at http://www.cde.ca.gov/cdepress/science-framework/science-framework-pt7.pdf. Google Scholar© 2003 American Institute of Physics.

Middle School Physical Science Resource Center

First Page

Report on a study of middle school physical science texts

Several physical science textbooks used in the middle schools in 1998 were examined in critical detail to determine if the perception that the textbooks were rife with errors was indeed true. We have found that it is indeed true and that none of the books examined were suitable for middle school students from several perspectives.

The Contribution of Training and Subject Matter Knowledge to Teaching Effectiveness: A Multilevel Analysis of Longitudinal Evidence from Belize

Differentes recherches ont etabli l'influence des enseignants sur la qualite de l'apprentissage des enfants. La question est de savoir ce qui rend un enseignant plus performant qu'un autre. Quatre indicateurs, etudies par les AA., peuvent etre utilises dans ce but : les acquisitions pedagogiques des enseignants, leurs participations dans les programmes d'etudes, leurs connaissances des matieres enseignees et leurs strategies pedagogiques