As understanding of STEM education pedagogy deepens, traditional lecture-based courses evolve to include new philosophies, such as active learning, project-based learning, and inquiry-based learning (IBL). Additionally, hands-on educational experiences at the early stages of an undergraduate program are seminal in propelling students into the…

This article presents a community of practice (CoP) designed to help California State University and California Community College STEM faculty implement active, equity-centered pedagogical changes. Using the Reading Apprenticeship framework as a foundation, the CoP focuses on text-based metacognitive conversations to facilitate students' authentic…

The paper describes an upper-division university course in Mars literature taught online since Fall 2013. The course readings comprise six novels relating to Mars. Authors include H.G. Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury, Phillip K. Dick, Greg Bear, and Kim Stanley Robinson. After an introduction, sections of the paper discuss course…

Redox reactions and their balancing are one of the basic chemistry subjects in which students may experience remarkable learning difficulties at the beginning of their university career. This topic represents an evolution of stoichiometry concepts related to the balancing of chemical reactions and can be taught with different approaches as a…

This article focuses on the learning of the Lewis representation at the transition from high school to university, in France. Indeed, this notion is taught both in high school and in the first year of higher education but with different methods, which seems to hinder the learners. In this work, we observe 11th grade and higher education classes…

The reduction of nitroarenes to anilines is a key transformation with real-life context, central to the preparation of many important fine chemicals. The importance of this transformation has led to its inclusion in not only university organic chemistry courses but also preuniversity, especially in Europe. A variety of reagent combinations have…

In this paper, we present three types of activity that we have observed during students' free exploration of a software called "Algodoo," which allows students to explore a range of physics phenomena within the same digital learning environment. We discuss how, by responding to any of the three activity types we identify in the students'…

Lab courses are a significant component of biochemistry and molecular biology (BMB) education. In teaching the labs, we combine established techniques with novel approaches. Lab formats have also moved from traditional cookbook style labs to guided inquiry to course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs), where faculty bring their own…

Overall, the major chemical information retrieval products Reaxys and SciFinder have several similarities such as numbers of document records, numbers of characterized substances (counting the PubChem Compounds integrated in Reaxys), and, possibly, numbers of different chemical reactions. Reaxys has well over 100 times the number of experimental…

One of the more difficult concepts introduced in the first-year undergraduate course, general chemistry, is that of chirality. Typically, left and right hands are the common, macroscopic objects of reference used to demonstrate the quality of being nonsuperimposable, followed by the use of a mirror and molecular models, to illustrate molecular…

Indigenous students are underrepresented in science, and the exclusion of Indigenous knowledge from Western education may be a contributor. Recently, Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers have called for a better integration of Indigenous knowledge systems into Western science. One suggestion from the literature is to integrate Traditional…

Readily available, free, computational approaches, adaptable for topics accessible for first to senior year classes and individual research projects, emphasizing contributions of noncovalent interactions to structure, binding and catalysis were used to teach Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences that fulfil generally accepted main CURE…

Earth's field nuclear magnetic resonance (EFNMR) spectroscopy offers students a unique opportunity to consolidate their understanding of NMR spectroscopic theory through hands-on practice with a simple spectrometer. A comprehensive, 6 h experiment is presented for the introduction of low-field NMR techniques, covering spectroscopy, relaxivity, and…

Thermodynamics challenges teachers and learners. Its pervasiveness about nature, mathematical abstractness, nonnumerical relations, and complexity in applications can inhibit understanding and usage, especially by undergraduates. Perspectives are given about these obstacles, and some suggestions are made to enhance comprehension of the discipline.

In this review article, formulae based innovative mnemonics have been discussed to create interest and remove phobia of students in the field of inorganic and organic chemistry. Educators can use these numerous mnemonics in their teaching style in the classroom lectures after discussing conventional methods to make chemistry intriguing. Here, I…