clement-2003aas

This study uses qualitative case study methods to study innovative teaching in biology at the middle school level. The findings are then compared to findings from a previous study of learning in electricity at the high school level. By looking for common successful learning processes in two different subject matter domains, we identify teaching strategies that foster conceptual growth and that are candidates for being considered general teaching strategies in science. The teachers in both domains used new approaches to teaching that are innovative in the way that they foster active learning of conceptual models on the part of the student. In order to understand the nature of the teaching and learning processes generated by these teachers, we attempt to develop a finer grained set of concepts and language for describing them.