This study researched the use of writing-to-learn strategies within a highschool (Year 11) chemistry classroom. The writing task itself asked the students to write a business letter to a younger audience of middle-school (Year 7) students. A mixedmethod design was used for the study, incorporating pre/post-testing with semistructured interviews. The evidence supports that the treatment students performed statistically significantly better on a conceptual question compared to the control group. Additionally, the treatment students felt that writing to a younger audience prompted them to use different language than they would have if, for example, writing to their teacher. Further, the treatment students described that the writing task promoted their understanding of and their confidence in their knowledge of the stoichiometry concepts addressed in class.

Little is known about how the content of a video case influences what preservice teachers learn about science teaching. This study was designed to determine the impact of two different video cases on preservice elementary teachers’ conceptions of multiple aspects of effective science teaching, with one video selected to focus attention on the role of the teacher. Three groups completed either: (i) a unit plan; (ii) a video case analysis with problematic selection of content and use of teacher behaviors; or (iii) a video case analysis with only problematic teacher behaviors. Two hundred seven end‐of‐semester oral defenses were analyzed to determine the extent to which group differences exist on six questions. Both groups who completed the video case analysis better consider how children learn when making decisions, involving activities and content than those who completed the unit plan. However, they do not use this same knowledge base to inform their role in interacting with children to move their thinking toward more accurate ideas. Prospective teachers in all three groups overlook the role of the teacher in the classroom and focus almost entirely on keeping children physically active. Therefore, even when a video case was deliberately selected to focus attention on the role of the teacher, this critically important aspect of teaching continues to be absent, or vague at best, for the 207 prospective teachers in this study. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 53: 1500–1523, 2016

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She is currently an associate professor in the Electrical Engineering Department at Seattle Pacific University. Her research interests include engineering education, engineering identity and workplace persistence, and non-stationary signal processing/detection theory.