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In this paper, we report on a case study of how three teachers personalised learning in science through supporting a group of Year 8 students to engage in individual inquiry projects The case study demonstrated now heavily transmissive teach ng can be avoided by restructuring classes to optimise student group and incividual work and timely teacher coaching opportunities as required. This approach can act as a catalyst to enable/prompt teachers to devise a rich developmental science curriculum that (a) enables tasks to be differentiated so as to address diverse student capabilities and interests, (b) can be team-taught drawing on the particular expertise/ interest of teachers in the team, and (c) enables students to connect science learning with their everyday worlds. Reasoning in science can be made personally meaningful to learners when they experience how and why it enables knowledge to be produced, both for themselves and for the wider community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of students' reasoning and argumentation skills in school science is currently attracting strong research interest. In this paper we report on findings where we aimed to investigate student learning on the topic of motion when students, guided by their teacher, responded to a sequence of representational challenges in which their representational claims functioned as both process and product for reasoning about this topic. We found that students participated in various reasoning processes in generating and critiquing their own and other students' representations, contributing to positive engagement with the topic and conceptual understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is now broad agreement that learners in primary and secondary school science need to know how to interpret and construct subject-specific ways of representing science activity and knowledge. There is also growing recognition that students are more motivated and learn more when they have opportunities to refine understandings through revising representations. Drawing on various theoretical perspectives and research studies into the implementation of this approach in classrooms across diverse topics, we propose a framework of pedagogical principles to guide teacher use of this representational focus to enhance learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing recognition that students need to understand and link different representational modes, such as graphic, numerical and verbal modes, in learning to think and act scientifically. Our paper reports on an exploratory study that aimed to investigate how students (years 4-6) responded to the challenge of engaging with, and learning how to interpret, multiple representations of the same science concepts. The findings, based on a case study approach employing qualitative methods, indicated that while teachers used various modes to engage students and assess learning, students often struggled to integrate concepts across modes, or understand the purpose of this translation work. There were various factors that affected students' understanding of concepts across modes, and the purpose of this modal focus. Our paper concludes with some implications for classroom practices in focusing on students' cross-modal learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a model that can be used to integrate and diversify the range of writing for learning tasks used in science classrooms. Two examples of how to use the model; Value of the model in framing the planning of writing-for-learning tasks.

Creative reasoning and problem-solving are crucial to how scientists work and how students learn in school science. However, developing guided inquiry that develops these capabilities within a prescriptive curriculum has proven difficult. In this paper, we report on a study of a teaching sequence that aimed to develop these capabilities through structured inquiry where students responded to representational challenges on the topic of respiration in senior secondary biology. We found that this activity engaged students and improved conceptual understanding. Students had many opportunities to practise reasoning skills in negotiating, integrating, refining, defending and translating their ideas across representations. Key conditions supporting this learning included (a) students having some prior relevant understandings that enabled them to engage with the demands of the challenge, and (b) effective teacher guidance of student sign-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been growing interest in linking the learning of Science with the literacies of Science and representations. Recent attention has been focused on learning theories that emphasise the socio-cultural and situated aspects of learning, and in particular the notion of learning as participation in a discourse community. This paper will describe a learning sequence planned with Year 5/6 teachers to study invertebrates in the schoolground environment, but with an additional focus in which students generated and negotiated representations, and discussed the adequacy of these. The paper will present data from video capture of classroom activities, students' work samples, and pre- and post-unit testing, to explore what a representational focus might entail in teaching science, and the role of representations in learning, reasoning and exploring in science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concerns about the status and quality of science teaching in Australian primary schools led the Australian Academy of Science to develop Primary Connections over 2004-8 with funding from DEST and the support of states and territories. Primary Connections is a teacher professional learning program supported with curriculum resources that aims to enhance learning outcomes in science and the literacies of science by supporting both inservice and preservice primary teachers to teach science effectively. Primary Connections is a systematic, widespread and innovative reform that complements programs within states and territories. The program is based on an innovative teaching and learning approach that links science with literacy, uses cooperative learning, embeds assessment with teaching and learning, and follows an inquiry process including student-planned investigations. Research has demonstrated that the program improves teachers' confidence, self-efficacy and practice, students' learning, and the status of science within schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evaporation is mostly taught in primary schools through a water cycle representation. This has its limitations in explaining mechanisms and local effects such as drops drying in a closed room, condensation on cold surfaces, or how we smell liquids. In this paper we describe a classroom sequence of activities for Grade 5 students that explored the use of a particle model in conjunction with a range of representational modes, to explain evaporation phenomena. In interviews we explored with students their visual and verbal accounts of particles, modelling a process of teacher-mediated negotiation of multiple representations. From the evidence, we argue that difficulties in understanding evaporation are inherently representational, and that by engaging with the multiple literacies of science teachers can support significant advances in conceptual learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]