Community colleges are a major entry point for many students to post-secondary education, particularly for minority, first-generation, low-income, and older students. A range of factors including transfer-readiness, curricular alignment, financial barriers, and transfer guidance, influence successful transfer between two-year colleges (2YCs) and…

Primary literature offers rich opportunities to teach students how to "think like a scientist," but the challenges students face when they attempt to read research articles are not well understood. Here, we present an analysis of what master's students perceive as the most challenging aspects of engaging with primary literature. We…

In response to the need to develop leaders to guide the implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), the Carnegie Corporation of New York provided funding to WestEd to develop a framework that defines the leadership knowledge and actions needed to effectively implement the NGSS. The development of the framework entailed…

In this article, we examine classroom observations from a 3-year large-scale randomized trial in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) to investigate the extent to which a professional development initiative in inquiry science influenced teaching practices in in 4th and 5th grade classrooms in 73 schools. During the course of the study,…

We present an innovative course-based undergraduate research experience curriculum focused on the characterization of single point mutations in p53, a tumor suppressor gene that is mutated in more than 50% of human cancers. This course is required of all introductory biology students, so all biology majors engage in a research project as part of…

Operation ARIES! is an Intelligent Tutoring System that is designed to teach scientific methodology in a game-like atmosphere. A fundamental goal of this serious game is to engage students during learning through natural language tutorial conversations. A tight integration of cognition, discourse, motivation, and affect is desired to meet this…

A productive approach to studying the role of representations in supporting students' learning of science content is to examine their actions from a practice perspective. The current study examines kindergarten and first-grade students' representational practices across a consistent context--the creation of storyboards--both before and after a…

This article describes a new hands-on, or "kinesthetic," activity for use in a physiology lecture hall to help students comprehend an important concept in cardiopulmonary physiology known as oxygen carrying capacity. One impetus for designing this activity was to address the needs of students who have a preference for kinesthetic…

In high school, many students do not have an opportunity to learn or use statistics. Because statistics is a powerful tool and many students take a statistics class in college, prior exposure to statistics in a chemistry course (or another course) would benefit students. This paper describes some statistical concepts and tests with their…

During the 1990s, a new policy hypothesis focusing on the quality of teaching to provide a high-leverage means for improving student achievement began to gain currency. Based on interview, observation, survey, and record data collected at the state, district, and school levels over a five-year time period, the study offers a look at how the San…