Improving education, particularly for the sciences, is an important and necessary endeavor which can lead to positive social change. Education reform tends to involve updating and aligning curriculum standards without considering methodologies or teaching strategies involved. Identifying evidence-based practices to improve achievement in science,…

First-generation students, especially in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, have low persistence rates. Research shows that one of the barriers to their low persistence is a need for a student-centered pedagogical approach. Research has shown that if an instructor incorporates a pause technique during a standard lecture,…

Traditional approaches to teaching and learning in large undergraduate STEM lectures has not kept pace with the massification and diversification of higher education. Efforts to alleviate learning obstacles call for improved instruction, stipulating the utility of specific pedagogical techniques delineated as "promising practices";…

Opportunities for large numbers of undergraduates to engage in authentic research experiences are limited in many large public institutions. These large public institutions serve the vast majority of students who are historically underrepresented in STEM fields, such as first-generation, low-income students of color. Although a course-based…

When previous research is cited incorrectly, misinformation can infiltrate scientific discourse and undermine scholarly knowledge. One of the more damaging citation issues involves incorrectly citing article content (called quotation errors); therefore, investigating quotation accuracy is an important research endeavor. One field where quotation…

This study aimed to better understand the effect that the flipped method of instruction has on students' learning approaches using interactive math lecture videos in a second-year vector calculus course. Three hypotheses were tested to determine if students' perceptions of their level of active engagement, the number of interactive lecture videos…

In 2012 the New Zealand Government identified as a priority the need to address the undersupply of students studying STEM subjects for delivering its Business Growth Agenda. Low engagement and retention rates in STEM subjects contribute to the shortage of STEM graduates, producing a negative impact on the New Zealand economy. This Teaching and…

The concept of active learning as a superior mode of instruction has recently received great attention in the education research literature. It holds promise of steering students away from rote memorization towards higher order thinking (as defined by Bloom's taxonomy revised). However, few studies focus on student perceptions of higher order…

This case study outlines the use of multilevel modeling for meta-analysis to analyze the meta-analytic data for a 3-year project. The focus of the project, which was funded by the National Science Foundation, was on comparing the performance (achievement) of undergraduate students who were taught using one of the various types of active…

This paper describes students' perspectives of a one-off flipped lecture in a large undergraduate mathematics service course. The focus was on calculating matrix determinants and was designed specifically to introduce debate and argumentation into a mathematics lecture. The intention was to promote a deeper learning and understanding through…

The traditional lecture style of teaching has long been the norm in college science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses, but an innovative teaching model, facilitated by recent advances in technology, is gaining popularity across college campuses. This new model inverts or "flips" the usual classroom paradigm, in…