How do teachers help children understand the difference between the structure of a flower and that of a root? Depending on the time of year this activity is quite easy. Get a bunch of flowers, germinate some chickpeas and raid the kitchen for carrots and beetroots--the children can experience the "real thing". But what if teachers want the…

We describe a third-year undergraduate course that focuses on multiscale modeling and protein folding and has as its primary goal the encouragement of students to integrate thinking across and beyond disciplinary boundaries. The ability to perform innovative and successful research work in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)…

Practical skills are important for the employability of biosciences graduates; however, first year science undergraduates often struggle to adapt to university practical classes, affecting skills development and decreasing their enthusiasm for laboratory work. This study describes the effects of introducing online multimedia practical support…

Recent calls for teacher preparation to become more grounded in practice prompt the questions: Which practices? and perhaps more fundamentally, what counts as a model of instruction worth learning for a new professional--i.e., the beginner's repertoire? In this report, we argue the following: If a defined set of subject-specific high-leverage…

Current standards emphasize student engagement with inquiry practices. However, implementing inquiry instruction is a formidable challenge for teachers as they often lack models for using and adapting inquiry-based instructional materials. Teacher education programs can provide scaffolded contexts for developing teachers' ability to critique,…

This paper addresses the use of e-materials in learning. Under pressure from the public, which is becoming increasingly conversant with IT, schools and also other non-formal types of learning are changing into e-classrooms and e-learning. Among parents and teachers, too, there is a widespread opinion that e-learning is more motivating and is more…