Integrating Technology into K-12 Science Education

Dear Colleagues,

Digital technologies can offer powerful tools to support science teaching and learning. While many teachers derive little educational benefit from them, their potential to assist in the creation of more student-engaged, stimulating, and intellectually challenging (e.g., epistemic learning) learning environments is recognized. These technologies thus give rise to a problem for science education research: how can teachers use and orchestrate these tools to improve students’ learning in terms of engagement and higher-order thinking skills development?

This upcoming Special Issue of Education Sciences aims to present an overview of the latest research on how to integrate technology in K-12 science education practices in order to promote high levels of students’ engagement and higher-order thinking skills. Papers on (but not limited to) the following themes are of interest:

• Contributing theoretically to the use of technology in science education, considering certain types of requirements (e.g., ethical, cultural, social, societal; populations with specific needs; transdisciplinarity);
• Contributing theoretically on the use of digital tools as epistemic tools in science learning and the conditions for their effectiveness;
• Characterizing traits of science teaching practices that improve students' learning, particularly in terms of students' epistemic agency and their epistemic practices;
• Promoting the instrumental orchestration of various tools in science education;
• Using technologies in teaching practices that are culturally and socially relevant;
• Using technology in order to understand, represent and solve problems (from academic problems to societal problems);
• Operating with technology to represent phenomena and convert one language into another;
• Evaluating students’ outcomes of the use of technology in science teaching;
• Teaching science through exploration, experimentation, investigation, simulation, or combinations of these, functions in which technology plays an important role;
• Contributing to the establishment of the conditions for the use of digital tools as epistemic tools in order to promote high levels of students’ engagement and higher-order thinking skills;
• Building relations between scientific concepts, or even conceptual fields;
• Characterizing the role of technology use to engage students, promote cooperative and collaborative learning and reinforce metacognition.

Studies are also welcome that focus on the non-formal contexts of science education in which technology plays an important role or on aspects of the connection to national curricula.

Empirical studies should give explicit attention to the validity, reliability, credibility and transparency of the study. Theoretical works should pay attention to, among other things, the following aspects of the field: specific problems and reasons as to why there is still a lack of strong, good theorization factors to consider in theorizing; the model in which it can be represented; how theorizing applies to some cases and how it can be extended to other cases; in addition to limitations and/or aspects to be developed on the future.

Dr. Joaquim Bernardino Lopes
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• technology
• digital tools
• science education
• epistemic learning
• instrumental orchestration
• students’ engagement
• higher order thinking skills
• technology-enhanced learning environments