There is an apparent need to help schoolchildren and students develop talents and abilities that are necessary for their future. To foster students’ talents and abilities, improvement of their learning environment is indispensable. As for science, it is required to improve both teaching materials and teaching tools and to achieve a suitable combination of such materials and tools for use in class. With regard to teaching tools, factors that need to be improved include measuring devices that are easy to use for experiments and measurement, clarity in the results of science experiments, safety, and simple preparation for experiments. We expect that improving learning environments could help students learn more deeply and cultivate their desire to learn. Therefore, this study involves science classes at the elementary school level in which the amount of oxygen generated through photosynthesis was measured, and is designed to compare and analyze how a difference in learning environments influences students’ learning, as well as to evaluate teaching materials and tools used in class. As a study method, we used the same teaching materials but prepared two different types of teaching tools. Adopting different teaching tools leads to the creation of different learning environments for students. Thus, we compared and analyzed how this difference in teaching tools changed students’ learning and considered crucial factors of teaching materials from the perspective of the learning environment. Two types of teaching tools used for comparison and analysis were a gas detector tube based on the “Courses of Study for the Elementary and Secondary Schools” revised in 2008 and an oxygen sensor employing an air-zinc battery (Takahashi-style oxygen sensor), which has been developed for science education. This study reports that we observed a remarkable difference in the quality of elementary students’ knowledge and skill acquisition, as well as the cultivation of their curiosity, after the students carried out measurement by themselves in the pilot class.

This research study addresses the development and practical evaluation of new technology that supports learner self-reflection. Specifically, the study developed concept mapping software equipped with a new “self-others comparison” feature, which supports self-reflection through comparing the thinking processes of oneself with those of others. For this study, we designed and conducted a practical evaluation of Grade 4 science classes that adopted this software. The evaluation included a comparative analysis on the use of the self-others comparison feature. After three analyses, it was indicated that the students who were in a class that used the self-others comparison feature were more active in reaching a thorough examination of their own thinking through comparison with that of others. Moreover, it was indicated that such behavior encouraged reflection on the variation between their own thinking processes and those of others, leading to deeper understanding of the content learned. From these results, it was concluded that the new feature implemented in this research was effective in supporting the self-reflection of learners.

The authors attempted to construct Junior High school science lessons based on Quine’s notion of holism (1992). Holism points out that observations and experiments cannot judge an individual theory, but can judge the system of the theories. The teaching method used in these classes was favorably received by the pupils (Tonishi and Sano, 2012; Fukuta, Oshima and Tonishi, 2013; Fukuta and Tonishi, 2014; Fukuta and Tonishi, 2015). This paper is aimed at proposing the methodology and the theories that provided the background used for constructing these classroom practices. The methodology: 1. Points out the scientific knowledge as the teaching objectives, and the teacher constructs the concept map of these types of knowledge with the aim of clarifying the conceptual structure of the teaching content. 2. Plans the classroom lesson, setting the learning objectives and the keywords from these objectives. 3. Implements the lesson (via observation or experiment) and evaluates the teaching objectives. 4. As the concluding activity of the lesson, a concept map is constructed by the learners, with the help of the teacher. Concept maps show the conceptual texture of a theory as a network of knowledge that can be judged via observation and/or experiment. Observed facts can only be interpreted scientifically in this network. A concept map is a very useful tool to represent scientific theories as a network to support learners’ judgments of scientific knowledge through observation and/or experiment.

We developed a pointing-type annotation system which runs on a tablet PC and helps learners to externalize and share their viewpoints on an educational manga case method teaching material, in order to support a teacher training course student aimed at fostering their acquisition of scientific knowledge about experimentation skills that they will use in real classes. By using the system, a learner can annotate a point that he or she has focused on within an educational manga page by using a touch operation to stick a “pin” on the point of interest and share such pins with other learners by superimposing their pins on his or her own annotated manga page. The results of our evaluation show that the system proved to be effective for the pupils to facilitate their learning and science skills development.

The purpose of this study was to review the Japanese science curriculum materials to determine their potential for promoting teacher learning. In this study, curriculum materials for sixth-grade elementary science on “The Moon and the Sun” provided by six elementary science textbook publishers were evaluated from the viewpoint of design heuristics for educative curriculum materials. The research questions that guided this study are: (1) What kinds of contents of professional knowledge for teacher learning are supported intensively in the curriculum materials? (the contents of support); and (2) What kind of forms of support for teacher learning are contained in the curriculum materials? (the forms of support). Based on the results, some characteristics of the Japanese elementary science curriculum materials were identified. First, there was strong support for pedagogical content knowledge for science topics and scientific inquiry, especially with regard to support for teachers in using scientific phenomena, support for teachers in engaging students in questions, fostering data collection/analysis, and explanations based on evidence. However, there was weak support for teachers in helping students design investigations and in promoting scientific communication. Second, the materials contained several forms of support that help teachers improve their use of instructional approaches and activities in productive ways, i.e. implementation guidance. However, the materials contained only a few forms of support that present explicit justification for using particular instructional approaches by explaining why these approaches are pedagogically and scientifically appropriate, i.e. rationales. The article concludes by discussing the strengths and limitations in teacher learning supports within existing Japanese curriculum materials.

Argument construction and evaluation skills are indispensable not only for young students, but also for the teachers who instruct them. A continuing issue is that in-service teachers lack sufficient skills in argument construction; however, in Japan, there is no program for training teachers in pedagogical strategies for constructing and evaluating arguments. The purpose of this study is to develop a training program for elementary school teachers that will improve these skills and to elucidate the effectiveness of the program. For this purpose, we constructed program activities built on previous overseas research studies, and integrated 12 pedagogical strategies that Yamamoto et al. (2013) administered for elementary children into the program. We applied these strategies to 23 in-service elementary school teachers. The program consists of 4 activities; it included 1) lectures on the definitions of the argument, 2) lectures and exercises related to the realities of children’s skills in arguments, 3) exercises aimed at providing an experiential understanding of the instruction and evaluation of arguments, and 4) an overview of argument construction conducted at an elementary school. The results of the research were based on an analysis of worksheets used in the program, the evaluation and construction of arguments (assessed pre- and post-program), and a survey questionnaire disseminated after the program. The results showed that teachers improved their argument construction skills with regard to the program’s content using claims, evidence, and reasoning. Within the construction and evaluation of arguments, significant improvement concerning evidence could particularly be seen. Moreover, teachers gave high marks to the program’s development of their understanding of the meaning, construction, and pedagogy of arguments, as well as the experiential exercises. Therefore, we can conclude that this program is effective for elementary school teachers who teach argument skills to improve their own argument construction and evaluation skills.

Inferring points for redesigning the Japanese science teacher training program enables one to also design an enriched learning environment for elementary and lower secondary school students. For that purpose, undergraduates of University of the Ryukyus who hoped to become teachers took a science examination, the national school achievement test, in 2015. Afterward, their answers were analyzed. 122 participants completed the science test for elementary school; the average score and correct answer rate were, respectively, 19.9 and 82.7%. 79 participants completed the science test for lower secondary school, with similar results: the average score and correct answer rate were, respectively, 20.6 and 82.5%. Careless mistakes can be regarded as the background of wrong answers for any question. The results obtained for elementary school science show that the undergraduates have weaknesses in “Application”, to use the knowledge and skills as solutions, and “Skills” for observations and experiments. The results suggest that the capability to handle subjects with little or no experience and the ability to discuss matters scientifically are both areas that require improvement. Furthermore, the results for lower secondary school science revealed that undergraduates also have weaknesses in “Review and Improvement”, which is the ability to consider the opinions or ideas of others compared with one’s own and make improvements. Moreover, results show the existence of many “who do not understand the fundamentals” and also “who are judged to have understanding but actually do not understand” in the answer situations of electromagnetic induction. Improvement of this situation must include knowledge of both teaching and science for students aspiring to be science teachers, using teaching materials in science textbooks.

In order to develop pupils’ competency and skills, we designed a science lesson based on the frameworks of psychological and sociocultural environment design. These frameworks were based on the proposal of Cunningham et al. (1997). The frameworks are 1) Provide experience with the knowledge construction process, 2) Provide experience in and appreciation for multiple perspectives, 3) Embed learning in realistic and relevant contexts, 4) Encourage ownership and voice in the learning process, 5) Embed learning in social experience, 6) Encourage the use of multiple modes of representation, 7) Encourage self-awareness of the knowledge construction process. Results indicated that our science lesson was successful both in terms of teaching the required content and fostering the development of pupils’ learning strategies, competency and skills. The proposal of Cunningham et al. (1997) was useful for designing our science lesson and should prove useful in designing other science lessons.