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The core component of this study was a five-week summer camp that provided Arduino and robotics workshops and group activities to girls in grades 6-11. All activities were structured to ensure that learning took place in a constructivist environment. The camp was designed as a program to increase girls’, especially minorities’ participation in computer science and engineering. Key elements of camp participants’ STEM interest, self-efficacy, and contextual factors were measured both before and after the camp. With the collection and analyses of the survey data, our present study is to examine how constructivist learning environment may impact adolescent girls’ STEM learning and interests. 

This study collected data from a five-week summer camp that provided programming workshops and engineering-based group activities to girls in grades 6-11. The camp was part of the actions designed to increase girls’, especially minorities’, participation in computer science and engineering. All activities were designed to ensure that learning took place in a constructivist environment. With the collection and analyses of survey data, the objective of this study is to examine whether and how a constructivist learning environment impacted adolescent girls’ STEM interests beyond their gains in STEM knowledge and self-efficacy. 

This is a quantitative study that examines how constructivist learning in a summer camp impacted middle school and high school girls’ STEM knowledge, self-efficacy, and ultimately, their interests in future STEM learning and growth. An online survey was used to collect information from thirty-one girls at the end of a five-week summer camp. The results are mostly confirmative of past studies that used student-centered project-based authentic STEM learning with significant gains in students’ understanding of STEM, self-efficacy, and interests in STEM for future development. The unique contribution of the study, though, is the finding that, when given the opportunity to engage in active learning and problem-solving, girls’ interest in STEM subjects could be substantially boosted; the constructivist learning environment along with their gains in STEM knowledge can compensate any insufficiency in self-efficacy in this regard. This study provides insight about the importance of instructional approach in STEM education. 

Specific to the topic of oxidation–reduction (redox), teachers are obligated by the discipline to prioritise symbolic traditions such as writing equations, documenting oxidation states, and describing changes ( e.g. , what undergoes oxidation/reduction). Although the chemistry education research community endorses connecting the vertices of Johnstone's triangle, how symbolic traditions undermine chemistry concept development, especially during lesson planning and teaching, is underexplored. To clarify this gap, we use the Mangle of Practice framework to unpack the clash between symbolic vs. particulate-focused instruction. We investigate teachers’ ( n = 3) co-planning and micro-teaching of a redox learning design at the VisChem Institute-2 using a narrative approach and video research methods. Our results show that the traditions of redox instruction are problematically entrenched in chemistry symbols. Mnemonics, the single replacement reaction scheme, and the written net ionic equation all constrain instruction focused on chemical mechanism and causality in various ways. We assert that the nature of redox knowledge in terms of what is worth teaching and learning must first be re-evaluated for reform-based efforts to succeed. Implications and suggestions for chemistry teaching and research at both secondary and tertiary levels are discussed. 

Despite years of research and practice inspired by chemistry education research, a recent report shows that US secondary instruction is not aligned with current national reform-based efforts. One means to mitigate this discrepancy is focusing on pedagogical conceptual change, its precursors (higher self-efficacy and pedagogical discontentment), and the subtleties of its mechanisms (assimilation and accommodation). In this study, we investigate the final reflections of participants ( N = 35) who completed our professional development program known as the VisChem Institute (VCI). Our results show that Johnstone's triangle as well as evidence, explanations, and models can be conducive for stimulating pedagogical discontentment among VCI teachers who exhibit higher self-efficacy. In addition, how VCI teachers assimilate and/or accommodate reform-based chemistry teaching ideas problematizes conventional assumptions, broadens application of novel theories, and is germane to introductory chemistry learning environments across the world. Implications and recommendations for chemistry instruction and research at both secondary and tertiary levels are discussed.