Both lecture and laboratory courses of biochemistry are important professional courses for undergraduates with biology related majors. Course optimization and update is crucial but challenging, especially for the laboratory course. Although taught separately, here we showed a strategy to bridge the two courses and promote the improvement of both.…

Despite the substantial progress made to develop evidence-based pedagogical practices that support student learning, many courses are dominated by "traditional" practices such as a passive lecture. Thus, a continued focus on reforming courses is necessary. Here we describe the deliberate practice-driven reform of a large lecture-format…

Quantifying student engagement with online learning resources on virtual learning environments such as BlackBoard is important in understanding how these technologies enhance the student learning. In the present study, it was examined when, and how often, first-year students accessed lecture recordings, lecture slides, and lecture notes via…

The Chinese government has implemented centralised science curriculum standards to change science teaching from a didactic to inquiry-based approach to support all students in acquiring science literacy. Framed through theoretical perspectives of inquiry-based instruction and cultural pedagogy, this study examined the influence and impact of these…

Calls to bring interdisciplinary content and examples into introductory science courses have increased, yet strategies that involve course restructuring often suffer from the need for a significant faculty commitment to motivate change. Minimizing the need for dramatic course reorganization, the structure, reactivity, and chemical biology…

Although much of the scientific community concerns itself with ideas of a sustainable future, very little of this interest and motivation has reached the classroom experience of the average chemistry major, and therefore, it is imperative to expose students to these ideas early in their careers. The focus of most undergraduate chemistry curricula…

Twenty-first-century biology rejects genetic determinism, yet an exaggerated view of the power of genes in the making of bodies and minds remains a problem. What accounts for such tenacity? This article reports an exploratory study suggesting that the common reliance on Mendelian examples and concepts at the start of teaching in basic genetics is…

The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of an activity set developed according to the inquiry-based learning (IBL) approach in the unit "Particulate Structure of Matter" on students' critical-thinking skills in science and technology courses. The study was conducted with 90 students from the 6th grade attending four, 6th…

This paper describes the design and impact of an inquiry-oriented online curriculum that takes advantage of dynamic molecular visualizations to improve students' understanding of chemical reactions. The visualization-enhanced unit uses research-based guidelines following the knowledge integration framework to help students develop coherent…

There are many ways in which wire coat hangers can be used other than for suspending clothes. The author has been making use of them in his teaching for many years--copying ideas from colleagues and creating some for himself. In this article, he shares five examples that can enrich learning about science. (Contains 6 figures.)

Curricular changes continue at United States medical schools and directors of gross anatomy, microscopic anatomy, neuroscience/neuroanatomy, and embryology courses continue to adjust and modify their offerings. Developing and supplying data related to current trends in anatomical sciences education is important if informed decisions are going to…

We implemented peer instruction in an introductory level conceptual physics course for nonscience majors on the basis of the success others reported with this method. We expected to see that learning from peer conversation, as evidenced by answering conceptual questions correctly following discussion, would correlate with course grade, but we did…

Active learning is based on self-directed and autonomous teaching methods, whereas passive learning is grounded in instructor taught lectures. An animal physiology course was studied over a two-year period (Year 1, n = 42 students; Year 2, n = 30 students) to determine the effects of student-led seminar (andragogical) and lecture (pedagogical)…

We report on the adaptation of the small enrollment, lab and discussion based physical science course, "Physical Science and Everyday Thinking" (PSET), for a large-enrollment, lecture-style setting. Like PSET, the new "Learning Physical Science" (LEPS) curriculum was designed around specific principles based on research on learning to meet the…

Research has shown that asking conceptually based questions along with a personal response system (clickers) is an effective way of implementing the peer instruction pedagogy. Lecture tutorials are a paper-based method that also incorporates peer instruction. Past research has shown that both methods yield significant learning gains for students…