Traditional laboratory courses involve students following detailed weekly experimental procedures, culminating in either a laboratory report or handout at the end of each experiment. While this setup teaches basic laboratory skills, it usually does not encourage students to think critically or independently. Therefore, many laboratory instructors…

While Writing Studies scholars have embraced research on multilingualism, writing scholars have not developed program assessment methods that are informed by that scholarship. This profile describes a program assessment design that was informed by research on multilingualism, super-diversity, and consequential validity. This design included…

Abstract A globalized world requires research to transcend geographical boundaries; this includes training students in international collaborative research. The purpose of this project was to identify the benefits, opportunities, and challenges of students from two universities (Kansas State Univ. and Tallin Univ. of Technology) working on an…

In this article, the author, a ninth grade teacher at a Title I high school, describes how she began her algebra classes with an open-ended research project, entitled Why Math? This project offered opportunities for students to reflect on why mathematics is important and to determine its relevance to them as individuals, that is, why…

Although the number of bachelor's degrees in the U.S. awarded to women has gone up, engagement of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) continues to be low. This paper presents a project-based learning program, informed by education research best practices, designed to provide research experiences to female students…

This article will provide ideas for teaching methods that aim to provide undergraduate students with the experience of working with mathematics in a business context. These teaching methods have been employed at a mainstream U.K. university in a final-year module, and employers have been heavily involved in designing and assessing learning…

Student learning in science is improved by authentic personal experience of research projects and the publication of findings. Graduate students do this, but it is uncommon to find student research and publishing in high school science programs. We describe here the Student Research and Publishing Program (SRPP) established at International School…

Too often, students don't feel engaged in their research projects. The problem begins as early as the topic-creation stage, when students may choose from a list of teacher-selected topics that don't interest them or struggle to select a single fruitful topic on their own. Nanci Werner-Burke describes how two students in an English…

In 2013, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its fifth report, attributing 95% of "all" climate warming--from the 1950s through today--to humans. Not only did the report--like previous IPCC reports dating back to 1990--accredit global warming to anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, but over time the vast…

In 2014, through the University of the Free State's (UFS) Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice (IRSJ), three South African universities partnered to collaborate on the pilot phase of a research project focused on understanding whether the Arts could enable social cohesion, as the 2012 National Development Plan (2030) had promoted. All…

The past few decades have witnessed an increasing separation of research and teaching, particularly in the area of undergraduate education. Supporters of such a separation have argued that involvement of undergraduates in research is incompatible with the idea of the research university. However, one of the founding principles of the research…

The purpose of this compendium is to catalog NCER's and NCSER's contributions to social-behavioral research. Research undertaken as part of these projects is contributing to a knowledge base that ultimately aims to improve academic outcomes for students via improvements in students' social-behavioral competencies, teachers' practices, and the…

This compendium organizes information on the math and science projects sponsored by NCER and NCSER into two main sections: Mathematics and Science. Within each section, projects are sorted into chapters based on content area, grade level, and intended outcome. In determining the chapters, we considered the emerging college- and career-readiness…

Development of skills in bioscience undergraduates is seen as desirable by academic staff, students and employers, and this is reflected across most degree programmes. However, providing the opportunity for students to practise skills may alone be insufficient for their development. With an evident discrepancy between the skills expected of…

A meaningful research experience with a strong mentor early in a student's educational career is formative. Many institutions recognize this and would like to have such an experience available to their best students, but it can be difficult to involve first-year students in a laboratory-based research because of their lack of background knowledge.…