Chemistry laboratory experiences provide students the opportunity to engage all three domains of learning: psychomotor, cognitive and affective. However, they are often stressful environments where students are expected to quickly learn new laboratory techniques, and collect data in a short amount of time. In principle, providing additional…

Students entering into a quantitative analysis course often struggle with connecting theoretical aspects of concepts from lecture to hands-on applications in the laboratory setting. A one-semester quantitative analysis course was redesigned to integrate active learning with a project-based curriculum that incorporated structured review of…

Integrating teaching and research can benefit both instructors and students by providing an enriching, stimulating experience that combines the instructors' interests with topics that are relevant and motivating to students. In keeping with National Science Foundation review criteria, the integrated course captures both intellectual merit, that is…

Students in upper-level courses are expected to observe disciplinary conventions in writing assignments. Common recommendations for teaching conventions require substantial time for instructor feedback and in-class instruction. As an alternative, we tested the effectiveness of a checklist in improving students' performance of these conventions.…

Engaging undergraduates in research is essential for teaching them to think like scientists, and it has become a desired component of classroom and laboratory instruction. Research projects that span an entire semester expose students to a variety of concepts and techniques and allow students to use experiments to learn scientific principles,…

This paper deals with a novel method for improving the traditional "verification" laboratory in science education. Drawing on the idea of integrated instructional units, we describe an instructional sequence which we call the Babushka concept. This concept consists of three integrated instructional units: a start-up lecture, a laboratory…

This study reports on science student perceptions of their skills (scientific knowledge, oral communication, scientific writing, quantitative skills, teamwork and ethical thinking) as they approach graduation. The focus is on which teaching activities and assessment tasks over the whole programme of study students thought utilised each of the six…

Inquiry and lecture/lab methods of instruction yield different results in conceptual and problem-solving tests, while no difference exists in factual tests. The author recommends that the inquiry method of teaching be refined so that it can become a practical classroom instructional strategy. (CT)

A Duquesne course integrating biochemistry lectures, clinical applications lectures, and laboratory sessions has the objectives of (1) making the course more relevant to students' perceived needs; (2) enhancing the learning process; (3) introducing clinical applications early in the students' program; and (4) demonstrating additional…

Findings are presented from a study of the effectiveness of a training program designed to increase nonverbal expressiveness, during expository teaching/lecturing, in the nonverbal channels: voice delivery, eye expression, gaze, facial expression, gesturing, posture, and movement. The program includes laboratory practice sessions, characterized by…