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Students frequently hold an incorrect view of evolution. There are several potential barriers that prevent students from engaging evolutionary theory including lack of knowledge, limited scientific reasoning ability, and religiosity. Our research provides tools for overcoming barriers related to religiosity and diagnoses the barriers preventing students from fully engaging in learning the theory of evolution. This was a two-part study. The first part of our study addressed two hypothesized barriers to learning evolutionary theory among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS or Mormon): (1) religious views stemming from incorrect understanding of the Church's neutral stance on evolution and (2) misunderstanding the theory of evolution. We measured the relationship between acceptance of evolution and knowledge of evolution, religiosity, and understanding of religious doctrine on evolution. Additionally, we measured the effect of including a discussion on religious doctrine in the classroom. Students in all sections, except for a control section, were taught a unit on evolution that included a discussion on the neutral LDS doctrine on evolution. Students enrolled in introductory biology for non-majors took pre, post, and longitudinal surveys on topics in evolution. We found significant relationships between knowledge, understanding of religious doctrine, and religiosity with acceptance of evolution. Additionally, an in-class discussion of he LDS doctrine on evolution helped students be more accepting of evolution. In the second part of our study, we studied a broader population to analyze differences in acceptance of evolution based on religious affiliation and religiosity. Our study focused on the interaction of five variables and their implication for evolution education: (1) religious commitment (2) religious views (3) knowledge of evolution (4) scientific reasoning ability and (5) acceptance of evolution. We measured each of these among equal samples of Southern Baptists, Catholics, Jews, and LDS populations and analyzed them with traditional statistics and structural equation modeling. Our findings showed that religious affiliation, religiosity and creationist views effected evolution acceptance, but not knowledge or scientific reasoning. These data provide compelling evidence that as students gain an accurate understanding of their religious doctrines and knowledge of evolution, they are more willing to accept the basic concepts of evolution. They also show diagnostic results that help educators better understand students' background and views. When educators better understand views that students hold, they are better able to design instruction for optimal learning.

Education is rapidly moving away from the instructional models of the 19th century and educationalists are now asserting that not only do students need to be able to learn by rote but also to be able to think in a more profound and complex manner. Students are required to develop new processes to handle the rapidly changing world that they are expected to take part in as they complete their formal learning. This change is evident in all the developed nations and Australian students are finding that they are being asked to demonstrate a range of higher order thinking skills in all their school subjects. Science courses in Queensland require students to be assessed on both complex reasoning and scientific process skills. Studies have shown that students can develop these skills in a number of ways that include the exposure to appropriate open-ended hands-on tasks. As higher order thinking skills underlie the development of both complex reasoning and scientific process, it is important that science educators take appropriate steps to facilitate the development of this level of thinking. This study examined the use of some higher order thinking skills by students using Information Technology in their science classroom. It investigated the degree to which students used their higher order thinking skills when engaged in a computer simulation of a complex science task. The study involved two pairs of Year 9 students, one pair each from the upper and lower quartiles of the year level, in a private Years 4 to 12 boys' school in an inner Brisbane suburb. All students had been immersed in Information Technology in Years 4 to 8 as part of a technology-across-the-curriculum project for all year levels in the school and at the time of the study were at the end of their second semester in Year 9. Students had worked with a large number of computer applications in all their subjects, averaging about one lesson in the computer room per day across all their subjects for the past year of schooling. The school also had a policy for learning and teaching that revolved around the development in students of critical thinking and, specifically in Science, complex reasoning, and scientific process skills. During this study, students engaged in a computer simulation requiring the application of skills and knowledge already learnt in their science course. The modules of this simulation developed an understanding of the essentials for life and the quantities of a range of items from water to seeds to land areas that would be required for a number of people that would be needed to staff the Lunar Base. Prompts were given on the way, which assisted students in their decision making. Students progressed through the various areas and stages of the development of the Lunar Base until they were satisfied that each area supported the others and that there was no imbalance that needed to be corrected. Once all stages had been completed, students were free to change variables and experiment further as they saw fit in order that they might produce the most self-sufficient Lunar Base possible. There was some evidence that the simulation did encourage the students in the pairs observed to think in greater depth about the materials and to argue their convictions in an improved manner. As well as the students appearing to increase in competency in argument over the period of time, the four students in their final interviews, spoke of feeling satisfied with the results of the lessons. The students also appeared more engrossed in their task and the pedagogy provided in the task was appreciated as it gave meaning to why they were required to learn scientific materials as well also presenting them with ways to find the knowledge for themselves.

This study explores the rationale, efficacy, and social validity of a professional development model designed to move elementary school science activities closer to the practices of working scientists as required by the United States’ “Next Generation Science Standards.” The model is culturally sensitive and aims to create experiences with high subjective task value. The formal theory of change uses scaffolding, Piagetian agency, and Vygotskian learning opportunities to argue that culturally familiar representational tasks in culturally natural intersubjective contexts can lead to work prototypical of scientific modeling under particular facilitation conditions: when participants (a) are allowed free use of their cognitive and culturally native tools; (b) work in open dialog amongst themselves and with a science cultural adept; (c) work in groups in contexts that represent cultural aspects of science work; (d) are pressed to follow some of the epistemic and ontological imperatives of working science; and (e) maintain their agency in resolving cognitive conflict. The study implemented the model with fidelity as a professional development workshop around exploring physics with simple, everyday materials over two afternoons with a small group of elementary-school teachers in southern Appalachia. Analysis indicates that participants engaged in representational tasks with little off-task behavior, exhibited all of the targeted modeling behaviors, felt all components were inherently interesting and useful, and rated the workshop highly as professional development in science teaching but lower as coherent with local evaluation standards. Data on outcome-expectancy beliefs were largely inconclusive but may suggest that the workshop caused teachers to doubt their current ability to teach science to their students. The workshop model provided “cultural modeling” and access to participants’ “funds of knowledge,” created a “third space,” and attended to intrinsic task interest as recommended in the National Research Councils’ How People Learn II. Overall, the study endorses using genuine dialog around teachers’ descriptions and explanations of the physical world to bridge native cultural norms and behaviors with science practices.

The actual work shows a model of discovery learning in order to realize a discovery environment (PARAGUAÇU, 1997) to demonstrate to the apprentice students in science, the understanding of how the concepts that are used in the creation of scientific theories are related. The subject is reached with the idea that is possible to create scientific theories in scientific models (FRIGG; HARTMANN, 2006; RUDNER, 1969), and that these models can be used to help in such learning. However, with the availability of such models, instead of introducing scientific terms related to some scientific topics, it intends to use the metaphor of Fairy Tales, what means, the vocabulary use of terms where the apprentice can understand by intuition on how a scientific theory is elaborated. On the other hand, in order to create and formalize this scientific model it was created the idea that was proposed by MIDES Architecture MIDES (PARAGUAÇU et al., 2003), which means the creation of a scientific model with the representation in XML (W3SCHOOLS, 2005b) in four views of knowledge: Hierarchy, Relational, Causal, and by Asking. So, the idea of this work is to show how the creation in XML is made, and to do so, it s necessary to make a review of the following subjects: learning environments; teaching based on cases; and some general aspects of a creation of a scientific theory, and about the creation of a theory like an axiomatic system, as well as to present the ideas for the elaboration of discovery learning models. When this review is done, we have the necessary knowledge to propose an architecture able to integrate two applications by the use of XML, that is, the first application is to a teacher s community that elaborate theories in scientific models using the metaphor of the Fairy Tales, and the second one, for students that desire to learn how the creation of a theory is made, by the use of models that were introduced by the teacher s community. / O presente trabalho apresenta um modelo de aprendizagem por descoberta no âmbito de realização de um ambiente de descoberta (PARAGUAÇU, 1997) para proporcionar a alunos aprendizes em ciência, o entendimento de como os conceitos que são utilizados na formação de teorias científicas estão relacionados. O assunto é abordado com a suposição de que é possível formular teorias científicas em modelos científicos (FRIGG; HARTMANN, 2006; RUDNER, 1969), e que estes modelos podem ser disponibilizados para proporcionar tal aprendizagem. Porém, com a disponibilidade de tais modelos, em vez de introduzir termos científicos relacionados a alguma disciplina científica, pretende-se para tal realização utilizar a metáfora de contos infantis, ou seja, utilizar um vocabulário de termos onde o aprendiz possa entender intuitivamente como é elaborada uma teoria científica. Por outro lado, para proporcionar a formalização deste modelo científico, foi adotada a idéia proposta pela arquitetura MIDES (PARAGUAÇU et al., 2003), ou seja, a realização de um modelo científico com uma representação em XML (W3SCHOOLS, 2005b), em quatro visões de conhecimento: hierárquica, relacional, causal e de questionamento. Sendo assim, pretende-se no decorrer deste trabalho mostrar como é realizada esta formalização em XML e, para isso, é necessário revisar os seguintes assuntos: ambientes de aprendizagem; ontologias; ensino baseado em casos; e alguns aspectos gerais sobre a elaboração de uma teoria científica e sobre a formulação de uma teoria como um sistema axiomático, como também apresentar as idéias para a elaboração de modelos de aprendizagem por descoberta. Feita esta revisão, tem-se o embasamento necessário para propor uma arquitetura que possa integrar duas aplicações por intermédio deste modelo XML, ou seja, a primeira aplicação serve para uma comunidade de professores que elaboram teorias em modelos científicos, utilizando a metáfora de contos, e a segunda, para alunos que desejam aprender como é realizada a formação de uma teoria, por intermédio dos modelos que foram disponibilizados pela comunidade de professores.

Games on net are in prominence due to the high level of interaction between pairs, situation that promotes a high number of youth spending hours in front of the computer. What guides this paper is to use this motivation for scientific learning, also focusing the education socio-constructivist view (VYGOTSKY, 1996). This paper's goal is to develop a computational model for the Scientific Reasoning teaching through the use of collaborative games, using the Coloured Petri Net formalism. This project relevance is in the belief that the shaped educational game functions as a way of learning, through principles of Scientific Reasoning, with a playful focus. It was proposed a frame that defines since the conception of collaborative game, including the interface to be applied, to the game execution. Then it was made the game interaction process using the formalism based on Coloured Petri Net. In order to evaluate this study, it was developed a game archetype on net that was used with high-school students, what made possible evidence, through questionnaires, this model viability, which uses collaborative learning through Scientific Reasoning / Jogos em rede estão em destaque graças ao alto nível de interação entre pares, situação promotora do alto índice de jovens que passam horas em frente ao computador. O que norteia este trabalho é usar esta motivação para aprendizagem de forma científica, contemplando também a visão sócio-construcionista (VYGOTSKY, 1996) de educação. Esta estudo tem como objetivo o desenvolvimento de um modelo computacional para o ensino do Raciocínio Científico por meio da utilização de jogos colaborativos, utilizando o formalismo Rede de Petri Colorida. A relevância do projeto reside na crença de que o jogo educacional modelado funcione como um meio de aprendizagem, pelos princípios do Raciocínio Científico, com uma abordagem lúdica. Foi proposta uma arquitetura que define desde a concepção do jogo colaborativo, passando pela interface a ser aplicada, chegando à execução do jogo. Foi então modelado o processo de interação do jogo utilizando o formalismo baseado em Rede de Petri Colorida. Para analisar esse estudo, desenvolveu-se um protótipo de jogo em rede que foi aplicado a uma turma de alunos do segundo ano do ensino médio, quando se constatou, através de questionários, a viabilidade deste modelo, que utiliza aprendizagem colaborativa usando Raciocínio Científico