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Faculty from three different teacher preparation programs implemented classroom scenarios to help preservice teachers practice holding difficult conversations with students. The goal was to enhance critical reflection and discussion around creating culturally responsive classrooms to change preservice teacher conceptions of effective teachers' qualities. Results indicate that preservice teacher conceptions of effective teachers shifted from a focus on personal attributes to teaching skills. This study addresses the need for practice-based teacher education that has advanced in parallel with efforts to find new ways to the practical knowledge needed to be culturally responsive teachers.

Education reform calls for portraying science as a process of inquiry and argumentation grounded in the epistemic traditions of a domain. While experimentation is a core scientific investigation strategy, diverse approaches are represented across different domains of science. Ecosystem scientists use experiments as a core part of their investigations, yet also acknowledge limits to its applicability. They describe experimentation as one approach among investigative strategies--combining these into a 'body of evidence' (BOE) approach that triangulates sources of evidence to support causal claims. A study was conducted to explore how these epistemic assumptions in ecosystems science are understood by K-12 teachers. Ten teachers from across the United States were interviewed. The teachers expressed understandings of experimentation that did not fully align with a BOE approach but displayed knowledge of some approaches used by ecosystem scientists. This knowledge was less apparent in their descriptions of their ecosystems science unit pedagogy and curricula and teachers cited a number of obstacles to incorporating it. The results suggest that if a BOE approach were to be introduced in K-12 ecosystems science, teachers would need a fuller understanding of this perspective and support in overcoming obstacles to employing it in the classroom.

This study focuses on an educational game titled "Cellverse," a two-player cross-platform VR project intended to teach high school biology students about cell structure and function. In "Cellverse," players work in pairs to explore a human lung cell and diagnose and treat a dangerous genetic disorder. "Cellverse" is being designed by the Collaborative Learning Environments in Virtual Reality (CLEVR) team, an interdisciplinary team consisting of game designers, educational researchers, and graduate and undergraduate students. Using a design-based research approach, we have enlisted the help of both subject matter experts and user testers to iteratively design and improve "Cellverse." The objective of this paper is to share how user and expert feedback can inform and enhance the development of learning games. We describe how we gather and synthesize information to review and revise our game from in-game observations, semi-structured interviews, and video data. We discuss the input of subject matter experts, present feedback from our user testers, and describe how input from both parties influenced the design of "Cellverse." Our results suggest that including feedback from both experts and users has provided information that can clarify gameplay, instruction, subject portrayal, narrative, and in-game goals.

Purpose: This study isolates the effect of immersion on players' learning in a virtual reality (VR)-based game about cellular biology by comparing two versions of the game with the same level of interactivity and different levels of immersion. The authors identify immersion and additional interactivity as two key affordances of VR as a learning tool. A number of research studies compare VR with two-dimensional or minimally interactive media; this study focuses on the effect of immersion as a result of the head mounted display (HMD). Design/methodology/approach: In the game, players diagnose a cell by exploring a virtual cell and search for clues that indicate one of five possible types of cystic fibrosis. Fifty-one adults completed all aspects of the study. Players took pre and post assessments and drew pictures of cells and translation before and after the game. Players were randomly assigned to play the game with the HMD (stereoscopic view) or without the headset (non-stereoscopic view). Players were interviewed about their drawings and experiences at the end of the session. Findings: Players in both groups improved in their knowledge of the cell environment and the process of translation. Players who experienced the immersive stereoscopic view had a more positive learning effect in the content assessment, and stronger improvement in their mental models of the process of translation between pre- and post-drawings compared to players who played the two-dimensional game. Originality/value: This study suggests that immersion alone has a positive effect on conceptual understanding, especially in helping learners understand spatial environments and processes. These findings set the stage for a new wave of research on learning in immersive environments; research that moves beyond determining whether immersive media correlate with more learning, toward a focus on the types of learning outcomes that are best supported by immersive media.

This study examines how different roles and background knowledge transform players' dyadic conversations into spatial dialogues in a virtual cellular biology game. Cellverse is a collaborative virtual reality (VR) game designed to teach cell biology. Players work in pairs, assuming the role of either a Navigator, with reference material and a global view through a tablet, or an Explorer, with a more detailed interactive view of the cell through a VR headset and hand controllers. The game is designed so players must collaborate in order to complete the game. Our results show that roles influenced their reference perspectives at a level of statistical significance. Furthermore, players with high prior knowledge tried to reduce their partner's mental effort by giving spatial information from their point of view, thus producing fewer occurrences of spatial unawareness. Results of this study suggest that designers can build in different roles and leverage different background knowledge to prompt effective partnerships during collaborative games.

Group work can engage students in active learning, yet students often resist working with peers in class. We investigated the impact of five minimally structured, easily implemented group work strategies used during weekly problem-based discussion sections in two introductory chemistry courses through student surveys and quiz score analyses. Students reported increased interaction with their classmates as a result of group work but did not feel more prepared for the weekly quiz. Interestingly, students' performance on the weekly quizzes was anticorrelated with the strategy they felt prepared them best for the quiz. Students at the introductory level appeared unable to "self-assess" what helps them learn. However, group work strategies with greater interaction between students were associated with higher quiz scores. Furthermore, we found that implementing specific strategies over time resulted in more collaboration than simply instructing students to work together. These results are consistent with previous work that highlights the importance of student interaction in learning and suggest that positive interdependence can be created among students even in a less structured collaborative environment.

Interactive simulations allow preservice teachers to connect education theory and pedagogy in scaffolded environments. We created digital simulations with scenarios from in-person simulations and used them to prepare novice teachers for conversations with parents. Using a design-based approach we implemented the simulations in an education class, gathered data through surveys and observations, and incorporated feedback into subsequent designs. Novice teachers perceived the simulation as authentic and practiced maintaining composure and articulating pedagogical approaches. Recordings of novice teachers' responses produced by the simulation enabled self-reflection and peer and instructor feedback. Results suggest that these digital simulations hold promise as low-cost, flexible tools for novice teachers to engage in targeted practice in a low-stakes setting.

Introductory science courses play a critical role in the recruitment and retention of undergraduate science majors. In particular, first-year courses are opportunities to engage students in scientific practices and motivate them to consider scientific careers. We developed an introductory course using a semester-long series of established laboratory experiments closely aligned with lecture topics that allow students to participate in a cognitive apprenticeship.

The assessment of learning in large online courses requires tools that are valid, reliable, easy to administer, and can be automatically scored. We have evaluated an online assessment and learning tool called Knowledge Assembly, or Knowla. Knowla measures a student's knowledge in a particular subject by having the student assemble a set of arbitrarily sized scrambled fragments into a logical order using a web-based interface. Instructors can use Knowla to create assessments and grading criteria. Initial testing of the tool indicates that the measure is reliable and that students access critical thinking skills as they engage with the material. Additionally, testing demonstrates that Knowla can be used to assess learning gains in a subject area. Knowla also shows promise as a learning tool and has already been integrated into university courses.