[This paper is part of the "Focused Collection on Instructional Labs: Improving Traditions and New Directions."] Recent studies provide evidence that social constructivist pedagogical methods such as active learning, interactive engagement, and inquiry-based learning, while pedagogically more effective, can enable inequities in the…

This report evaluates the use of active, open-ended research problems taken from the instructor's laboratory and assigned as mid-semester projects in Transport Phenomena. Projects are structured in a POGIL [process oriented guided inquiry learning] format and designed to engage students by providing them the opportunity to impact real research…

Scaffolding pre-service teachers to critically reflect on their practice remains a challenging goal. Exploring the extent to which peer discussion facilitates this critical reflection is the focus of this paper. Using a series of three linked tasks, pre-service teachers 1) reflected on a classroom incident from a vignette of practice, 2) shared…

Large numbers of U.S. students lack proficiency in science, and students from different ethnic and socioeconomic groups show disparities in science achievement.2 Science knowledge and skills are important for both academic and workplace success, and a variety of interventions have been developed to improve student science achievement.…

This exploratory case study reports findings on 20 middle-level science and mathematics teachers' perceptions of the effectiveness of a one-year project in which teachers engaged in using robotics and engineering design inquiries in their classrooms. Principled by Bandura's Social Learning Theory (SLT) and using mixed methods approaches, the study…

This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of a professional development program on the use of a STEM-based 5E Inquiry Learning Model in enhancing the learning of STEM-based Inquiry Learning Model among 78 in- and pre-service science teachers. The topic electric circuit was used as the context of the study. Given the aim and the exploratory…

Smartphones are increasingly used in schools to achieve a number of educational outcomes; from developing measurement skills to enabling collaborative learning. When used as a measurement device in science classrooms, a few questions emerge. How good are the measurement capabilities of smartphones? Can smartphones lead to a more positive learning…

This research was carried out to analyze the effect of Group Investigation (GI) model on the student problem solving ability and students academic achievement on the digestive system material for students grade 8th junior high school 2 Belimbing Hulu. In this study we used quasi experimental design according to the quantitative research methods,…

Guided by the Boundary Activity based Learning (BABL) principle, mobile technology-supported inquiry learning activities were implemented in a primary four science class in Hong Kong. An exploratory study was conducted to examine the effects of the BABL guided inquiry activities on students' learning performance and to explore how the key element,…

Calls for educational reform in undergraduate STEM education have become more prominent in recent years, particularly in introductory/foundational courses. Such reform efforts were initiated 10 years ago in the general chemistry program at the University of Arizona. In this contribution, we describe the major successes and challenges encountered…

Middle school reading teachers in a south Texas school district were surveyed to obtain a clearer understanding of one-to-one mobile device usage in the middle school reading classroom specifically regarding collaborative and active learning environments. The theoretical framework reviewed emerging learning theories that have steered effective…

Students who struggle with vocabulary knowledge often see a decline in comprehension of content. Even students who receive strong reading instruction in the early elementary years may still experience the fourth-grade slump (Chall, 1983), which more often affects students from underserved populations. Many of those same students are also affected…

A pedagogical innovation was collaboratively designed, implemented and evaluated in the context of a school-university partnership. The innovation had a dual purpose: 1) to provide an opportunity for primary pre-service teachers to develop their understanding and experience of teaching "design and produce" processes (working…

The purpose of the present article was to analyze the interaction between elementary students and a professional design expert. The expert was present in the classroom, facilitating a collaborative lamp designing process together with the teacher. Using the notion of "figured worlds" (Holland et al. 1998), we explored how learning could be…

This study investigates how a two-year continuing professional development (CPD) programme, with an emphasis on teaching about science through inquiry, impacted the experiences of, approaches to and attitudes towards teaching science of 17 primary teachers in Dublin. Data sources included interview, questionnaire and reflective journal strategies.…