This paper presents important findings that were observed as interconnected key elements of high-quality co-teaching of a physics course for pre-service science teachers while the collaborating faculty experienced a "pedagogical convergence." This pedagogical convergence is akin to the "conceptual convergence" that Roschelle…

This article describes and illustrates a physics course for first-year college students whose only knowledge of physics is that they do not like the subject. The physics content is driven entirely by what appears in the daily newspapers and generally covers most physics topics in a semester. This course was structured as a learning community that…

We present data from large introductory algebra-based physics courses at a large public research university in the US in which most students were bioscience majors or other health-related majors. The data was analyzed from two introductory physics courses, which are required for most of these students and they are often considered "weed…

Self-regulated learning (SRL) is the metacognitive aspect of learning that goes beyond learning content and skills. With SRL, students are aware of their content understanding and learning progress and use advanced thinking skills to create goals and improve their academic achievement. In this action research, SRL strategies were integrated into…

This study investigates the relationship between study methods and exam performance in introductory physics courses. Data were collected over 3 years through surveys to examine students' study habits, perceived effectiveness of techniques, and the correlation between time allocation and exam grades. Results indicate that high-achieving students…

During the pandemic, the use of question pools for online testing was recommended to mitigate cheating, exposing multitudes of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students across the globe to this practice. Yet instructors may be unfamiliar with the ways that seemingly small changes between questions in a pool can expose…

An introductory physics course may be run like a video game, where students have an almost unlimited number of attempts to demonstrate their competencies through a sequence of zero-penalty assessments until the end of a semester. Each checkpoint is conducted as a 10-minute, one-on-one oral interview with the instructor, and students are not…

A physics laboratory instructor used action research to effectively implement a 5E instructional approach, which incorporated scientific practices. The instructor explored how to integrate the instructional approach into practice, challenges present in the implementation, and students' learning experiences. The data were collected during three…

This paper describes an alternative approach to teaching and learning practices in an undergraduate physics laboratory. The instructor plans and implements the 5E instructional model into the laboratory instruction. The article includes an example of the 5E lesson for the laboratory component of a physics course, which has separate lecture and…

This article showcases how a physics lab course was successfully redesigned to promote important reasoning abilities not explicitly addressed in the typical college setting. Student development of such abilities is essential for sound decision making, particularly when living in an information age. Essential features of our guiding curricular…

Many large-lecture introductory science courses for nonscience majors do not have a lab component and hence do not provide much opportunity for students to engage in the practice of science. I have developed a new instructional activity called Dorm Room Labs that enables students to conduct hands-on activities as homework (or dorm room work) to…

There is a growing need for college science faculty to teach a diverse group of learners. The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework can be used to create inclusive learning materials and activities in the higher education science classroom. A UDL Academy introduced science faculty to the UDL framework, which led to them implementing UDL in…

In this paper, we provide examples of interactions with instructors that women in physics courses find condescending or intimidating based upon data from individual interviews with women in physics courses. We also provide some examples of interactions in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) courses that women found validating.…

This article is prepared as part of a "Practice Teaching in Science" course of a teacher education program aiming for developing prospective science teachers' teaching through inquiry-based instruction involving practices of science and active learning strategies. During the semester, student teachers are required to prepare four…

Sessions of our laboratory-based physics course have been "meeting" synchronously online instead of on campus due to the pandemic. Shifting to remote instruction prompted us to create online versions of the course. In the unit on global climate change, for example, we continued engaging students in documenting their initial and evolving…