The growing popularity of flipped, blended, and online learning, combined with the need to support a student population with increasingly diverse backgrounds, has led to the development and use of online materials to support students' learning of chemistry outside of a face-to-face classroom. Chemistry simulations provide opportunities to make…

Facile visualization of biomolecules is an essential component of the undergraduate biochemistry curriculum. In the past, a number of tools have been used to display biomolecules. More recently, the advent of greater accessibility to virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) programs has created a new mechanism to visualize biomolecules.…

For six semesters, activities have been incorporated into first year general chemistry courses in an effort to build student conceptual chemistry knowledge. The activities follow a learning cycle pedagogy (similar to Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning or POGIL activities) and consist of guiding questions involving animations, models,…

This study investigated the effect of interactive computer simulation-supported inquiry on South African grade 8 learners' comprehension of atoms and molecular structures. Two sample groups of 34 learners per sample group were used, one acting as a control group who were exposed to a teacher-directed pedagogy while the experimental group used…

We developed a computerised simulation that utilises embodied modelling by letting students play the role of particles in a liquid. We compared the learning of two eight-grade classrooms that used the embodied modelling simulation during a weeklong learning module on phase change, with a comparison group that used an ordinary simulation with no…

The "Grand Challenges" for Engineering are an effort to portray engineering as a field that has profound impacts on society. This study explores the level of interest first-year engineering students had in various "Grand Challenges" and in nanotechnology topics. We administered a survey to a large sample of students enrolled in…

Background: Studies have shown that students' knowledge of osmosis and diffusion and the concepts associated with these processes is often inaccurate. This is important to address, as these concepts not only provide the foundation for more advanced topics in biology and chemistry, but are also threaded throughout both state and national science…

The purpose of this exploratory study was to identify and describe some of the dimensions of scientific collaborations using high throughput computing (HTC) through the lens of a virtual team performance framework. A secondary purpose was to assess the viability of using a virtual team performance framework to study scientific collaborations using…

Our main goal in this study was to explore whether the use of models in high school molecular genetics instruction can contribute to students' understanding of concepts and processes in genetics. Three hundred and nineteen students from four comparable groups of 11th- and 12th-grade students participated. The control group (116 students) was…