Dobaria publishes first lead author peer-reviewed journal article

Along with SLRG co-members, Archie Dobaria recently published an article highlighting results and analyses associated with the MEL Project. The team compared the more autonomy-supportive baMEL to the less autonomy-supportive pcMEL and found that both scaffolds shifted high school student and preservice teacher participants’ plausibility judgments toward a more scientific stance and increased their knowledge about the topics. Additional analyses revealed that the baMEL resulted in deeper evaluations and had stronger relations between levels of evaluation and post-instructional plausibility judgements and knowledge compared to the pcMEL.

SLRG members Sinatra and Lombardi publish with University of Southern California’s Imogen Herrick!

There has never been a more pressing need for students to learn how to evaluate scientific information online than during the COVID-19 outbreak. Information, misinformation, and disinformation spread quickly across online news and social media platforms. This misleading or incorrect scientific information about infectious diseases could lead to negative outcomes for those who believe it is true or follow the information. Published in winter 2023 edition of The Science Teacher, Herrick et al. outline six steps to support students in evaluating scientific claims online.

Governor’s Science Cafés Article Published in Research in Science Education!

Along with co-authors Gina Childers, David Osmond, and Stacy Britton, SLRG’s own Donna Governor has published a new article in Research in Science Education, a prestigious science education research journal.

Science cafés create open, public forums to promote the exchange of ideas between science experts and the public. This innovative research merged perspectives on informal learning
environments based on self-determination theory and the contextual model of learning. In fact, most science cafés attendees said that knowledge and learning;
fulfilled personal needs, but social interactions, with other attendees and science experts also factored heavily in the decision to attend. Exciting work as we seek to understand how to better engage the public in the scientific enterprise!

Dr. Donna Governor Publishes New Book

Our very own SLRG team member Dr. Donna Governor published new book “Staging Family Science Nights” now available on the NSTA science store.  The book serves as an accessible handbook designed for helping you to create an informal learning environment that will generate enthusiasm and enjoyment of science among the entire family.  The book’s first section—“Producing the Event”—devotes eight chapters to planning, recruiting volunteers (including students), setting up, last-minute troubleshooting, and injecting pizazz. The four chapters in the second section—“On the Stage”—offer guidance and templates for activities at the novice, intermediate, and advanced levels. Activities include “Balancing Bugs,” “Bubble Olympics,” and “Creating Color Slime.”

An SLRG Slam Dunk!

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Congratulations to SLRG members Shondricka Burrell and Reed Kendall who will be representing the graduate and undergraduate classes, respectively, as the 2019 Temple College of Education Graduation speakers! Their speeches will feature views on how educators should be agents of growth in their communities. We can hardly wait to hear your speeches!

 

Klavon Selected for Prestigious Institute

Timothy G. Klavon, graduate research assistant in SLRG, has been selected for the 2019 Sandra K. Abell Institute. Selection is highly competitive and many congratulations to Tim!

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The Sandra K. Abell Institute is a prestigious event for promising doctoral students in the discipline of science education research and recognizes the importance of investing in these talented individuals. Tim joins a select group of doctoral students and science education scholars that have participated over the last decade.

The 2019 Institute will be held at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, TN.

New EdSci Byte

In the article Toward a more coherent model of science education than the crosscutting concept of the next generation science standards: The affordances of styles of reasoning” Osborne et al., (2017) are trying to investigate and offer a new framework to help guide teachers, curriculum designers, and assessment developers. The model contains 6 styles of scientific reasoning (i.e., mathematical deduction, experimental exploration, hypothetical modeling, categorization and classification, probabilistic thinking, and evolutionary reasoning) and is compared to 7 crosscutting concepts introduced by the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).  The authors challenge the NGSS point of view of science as a singular construct, and instead discuss how different fields of science have different ontological and epistemic frameworks, and also require different methodologies for investigation. The authors’ framework is designed on the basis of a plurality of science wherein the aim is to enhance NGSS crosscutting concepts by integrating styles of scientific reasoning. Each style of reasoning illuminates a common form of reasoning and epistemology used in specific scientific disciplines.  Consequently, the authors suggest consideration of styles of reasoning in considering any future revision of NGSS because this model is coherent with micro and meta-understanding of science educators.

-Busra Uslu and Archie Dobaria