To further teaching and learning, there has been a push to engage faculty to pursue research on teaching. With the recognition that science research often is done by teams, we sought to create a research-cluster approach to support faculty engaging in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). This article describes a faculty-focused process…

This qualitative study compares the views about nature of science (NOS) between students enrolled in a traditional lecture and laboratory course and students in an inquiry-based class to the view of the scientists who taught the course. We administered the Views of Nature of Science Form C (VNOS-C) to identify students' views after partaking in…

Many teacher educator preparation programs do not provide opportunities for preservice teachers (PSTs) to experience and examine the use of popular fiction as a connection point to science teaching. This study explores a unit designed to support PSTs in learning and applying core concepts and processes of literacy and science by leveraging a…

Undergraduate research experiences (UREs) significantly enhance the outcomes of students who participate. Unfortunately, students may face barriers to engaging in UREs, which creates challenges for students' development of essential research skills that may not be covered thoroughly in laboratory classes. Overall, there is a need for a curriculum…

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…

In this study, we analyzed the literature on teaching or learning on a topic in Earth science, environmental science, or climate change between 1995 and 2017. We investigated the length of the intervention, intervention setting and instructional level, instructional purpose, pedagogical framing and pedagogical methods (including what materials and…

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…

The "Next Generation Science Standards" explicitly endorse argumentation as essential practices for K-12 science classrooms because it can concurrently engage the learners in the coordination of conceptual, epistemic, and social goals. It is important to develop students' capacities to interpret information and data to reasonable…

Analytical writing enhances retention of science learning and is integral to student-centered classrooms. Despite this, scientific writing in undergraduate programs is often presented as a series of sentence-level conventions of grammar, syntax, and citation formats, reinforcing students' perceptions of its highly prescriptive nature. The authors…

One common notion is that all classrooms using Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) are the same. Though POGIL has essential components, this research found that students' conceptual achievement, a classroom outcome, can be differentially affected by professors' style of POGIL implementation. Audio/ video recordings of student groups…

Although student production of arguments in group learning environments has been shown to promote scientific reasoning and understanding of science concepts, little previous work has examined the relationship of the structure of curricular materials to the production of argumentation. In this study, we examined this relationship for a collection…

Between 2007 and 2010, three types of semester research projects were assigned in BIO 140 Humans and Their Environment, a nonmajors introductory course at Salve Regina University. Specific environmental impact-type assessments were used to foster scientific inquiry and achieve higher scientific literacy. Quantitative and qualitative measurements…

This study explores the use of Photovoice as a pedagogical tool in two introductory undergraduate chemistry courses for nonscience majors. Photovoice, historically linked to participatory action research, is a qualitative mode of inquiry in which the perspectives provided in narratives and pictures are generally personal, subjective, and unique.…

Teaching strategies such as guided inquiry have long been reported to produce superior learning outcomes in postsecondary science education. Yet many teachers cite obstacles that prevent them from implementing the method. Students also often report negative attitudes toward guided inquiry, leading to a lack of student engagement and other…

Population genetics is fundamental to understanding evolutionary theory, and is taught in most introductory biology/evolution courses. Many students are unaware that understanding this topic requires pertinent knowledge of mathematics and consequently struggle with the subject. As a response to this problem, a virtual tool (Pop!World) was…