Students are encouraged to develop a set of scientific skills and disciplinary practices common across the STEM disciplines. These skills (scientific inquiry, quantitative skills, laboratory and computational skills, communication skills, teamwork/interpersonal skills, interdisciplinary competency) are highlighted as important in discipline-based…

This article describes two cohort programs that were used to support students from groups underrepresented in STEM fields at Carleton College. These programs were designed to support three aspects of student development: students' drive to succeed in STEM fields; students' sense of belonging in their student cohorts, in the college, in the STEM…

How does the degree of inquiry-based laboratory instruction impact student performance and student perseverance in the laboratory portion of a first-semester general chemistry course? The implementation of a new first-semester general chemistry laboratory curriculum provided an opportunity to address this question. A modified version of…

Significant challenges to education transformation in lecture-oriented science departments include initiating and supporting a dialogue about teaching and learning among faculty whose priorities are primarily research. The authors established a faculty learning community through which participants made significant changes to how they think about…

This study examines the mentoring relationships of student instructors who provide supplemental instruction for undergraduate science courses. Specifically, we examined the relationships negotiated between mentor and protege student instructors during the first year of the mentoring program. The undergraduate student instructors in this study are…

An institution-wide focus on deep learning has made significant changes in the biology and physics core course curriculum at the U.S. Air Force Academy. The biology course director has reworked course objectives to reflect the learning-focused approach to teaching, while the physics curriculum has adopted new learning outcomes and ways to…

K-12 education has identified an important need for culturally relevant practices among underrepresented minority students in the classroom. Research has shown that minority students perform better in multicultural learning environments that place an emphasis on addressing both the student's social and academic needs. Accordingly, Central State…

Determined if spatial training (independent of classroom, laboratories, and instructors) would improve achievement of organic chemistry students (N=67) at a small liberal arts college and if advanced chemistry students could benefit from such training. The spatial training program systematically developed skills required to use model kits…

Reviews the development of locally produced instructional television to supplement curriculum, emphasizing that programs must be designed to illustrate/augment a particular course's material. Describes required equipment, setup, preproduction planning, taping (sample script available), and provides results of student evaluation of instruction and…