The latest developments in virtual reality (VR) are gaining attention in education as they are expected to provide risk-free, hands-on learning experiences. However, the use of VR in laboratory settings is still in its early stages of adoption. Therefore, it remains unclear whether these technologies will be widely adopted to educate students in…

The existing landscape of collaboration and partnership-based research involving university writing centers primarily explores joint initiatives with campus libraries, academic programs, and high schools designed to support a variety of student learning objectives. This project is motivated by the increasing demand for partnerships between…

This study captures student perceptions of the effectiveness of remote learning and assessment in two associated engineering disciplines, mechanical and industrial, during the COVID-19 pandemic in a cross-national study. A structured questionnaire with 24 items on a 5-point Likert scale was used. Parallel and exploratory factor analyses identified…

STEM-related educational outreach offers students enriching opportunities to become more familiar with science, in terms of how it relates to their daily lives and with respect to possible career paths that they might want to follow. At the same time, graduate student trainees providing that outreach act as important resources for elementary and…

Computer programming education has practice-oriented as well as theory-oriented learning goals. Here, lab work plays an important role in students' learning. It is however widely reported that many students face great difficulties in learning theory as well as practice. This paper investigates the important but problematic relation between the…

Boston University's (BU) CityLab program was created in 1991 as a partnership between faculty members of BU's School of Medicine and School of Education in response to the first call for proposals under the Science Education Partnership Awards initiative of the National Institutes of Health. CityLab's founders recognized the need for CityLab, a…

"Bordered Writers" explores how writing program administrators and faculty at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) are transforming the teaching of writing to be more inclusive and foster Latinx student success. Like its 2007 predecessor, "Teaching Writing with Latino/a Students", this collection contributes to ongoing…

Each year, thousands of undergraduates in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields conduct research in US university and college laboratories. Such undergraduate research (UR) experiences are common practice in US higher education, with nearly a century of history at research universities and liberal arts colleges.…

Early efforts in physiological research in the United States were produced by lone investigators working in laboratories funded by their own medical practices. In Europe, however, Claude Bernard and Carl Ludwig produced a new model of scientific research laboratories funded by the state that sought to develop the pursuit of biomedical research as…

Many aquatic organisms survive by filter feeding from the surrounding water and capturing food particles. We developed a laboratory exercise that allows students to measure the effects of filtering by fresh water mussels on water turbidity. Mussels were acquired from Wards Scientific and exposed to a solution of baker's yeast. Over a period of one…

We explored the impact of laboratory curriculum on students' understanding of the nature of science at five US universities. The specific curricula studied were traditional (verification), inquiry-based, and research-based. The inquiry curriculum was Inquiries into Chemistry, and the research-based curriculum was developed by the Center for…

When university/college faculty members believe that ESL students' writing skills are not equivalent to those of native speakers, they frequently send these ESL students to their institution's writing centres (WCs). However, this often results in frustration for WC staff, the students, and faculty members. This article first describes ESL…

This qualitative sociolinguistic research study examines Latino/a students' use of language in a science classroom and laboratory. This study was conducted in a school in the southwestern United States that serves an economically depressed, predominantly Latino population. The object of study was a 5th-grade bilingual (Spanish/English) class. The…

Unlike students in other engineering disciplines, undergraduates in biological engineering typically have limited opportunity to develop design competencies, and even fewer chances to implement their designed projects. The international Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition is a student Synthetic Biology competition that, in 2009,…

Online graduate programs in psychology are becoming common; however, a concern has been whether instructors in the programs provide adequate research mentoring. One issue surrounding research mentoring is the absence of research laboratories in the virtual university. Students attending online universities often do research without peer or lab…