This article details the outcome of a joint reflective approach undertaken by the authors to identify common difficulties experienced by 2nd-year undergraduate Biochemistry students in laboratory classes. Difficulties experienced in laboratories can affect the development of hand skills, an understanding of how to correctly operate laboratory…

Engaging in argument from evidence is a fundamental science practice. However, preservice elementary teachers have difficulty constructing arguments. They need effective experience with argument construction in science. Written argumentation is crucial in the process of science learning. One of the approaches for learning science through…

For nearly two decades, augmented reality (AR) has found diverse applications in education, particularly in science education, where its efficacy has been supported by relevant theories and many empirical studies. However, previous studies have revealed the following research deficit: While AR technology appears to influence learning-related…

In this laboratory activity, students were tasked with determining the heat of combustion for each of three common sugar substitutes: saccharin, aspartame, and sucralose. The heats of combustion were determined via three different methods: bomb calorimetry, heats of formation derived from semiempirical calculations, and tabulated average bond…

Based on the pedagogical principle of cognitive conflict, Inquiry-Based Laboratory Activities (IBLAs) have been shown to improve conceptual understanding of challenging science and engineering topics. Yet, providing students physical apparatuses to complete an IBLA is not tenable in every instructional setting. This paper reports design,…

Clear and rigorous quantum reasoning is needed to explain quantum physical phenomena. As pillars of true quantum physical explanations, we suggest specific quantum reasoning derived from quantum physical key ideas. An experiment is suggested to support such a quantum reasoning, in which a quantized radiation field interacts with an optical beam…

Recently there is an increasing need for experiments that can be conducted remotely. In this sense, this paper presents three experiments about materials science and an X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique that can be taught and performed entirely remotely. The first experiment is about the calculation of lattice parameters, atomic radii, and…

Chemistry is considered a difficult subject by most students. Its difficulty lies in Chemistry's complex and abstract nature. This highly abstract nature requires constant interplay and coordination between the macroscopic, particulate, and symbolic representations. Experts can successfully navigate the various representations without overloading…

We have developed a multivariate and multidisciplinary lab experiment on the synthesis of alginate hydrogel beads of various sizes and dye encapsulation for upper-division undergraduate and graduate students. This experiment introduces students to several common concepts in polymer chemistry, materials science, and drug delivery. The experiment…

Purpose: The contextual variability of stuttering events makes it difficult to reliably elicit stuttered speech in laboratory settings. As a result, studies that compare stuttered versus fluent speech are difficult to conduct and, thus, are limited in the literature. The purpose of the current study is to describe a novel approach to elicit…

General chemistry students need to understand the concept of intermolecular forces and use them to predict the properties of materials. To do this, they must create symbolic representations of molecules, relate these to physical observations, and explain them using submicroscopic theoretical constructs. When these concepts are taught separately,…

Contribution: The design of an operating system (OS) experiment course with a gentle learning curve is proposed and a scalable OS experiment platform supporting learning behavior analysis is presented. Background: In the teaching practice of the OS experiment course, several problems were faced. First, the learning curve for the students is too…

Many modern anatomy curricula teach histology using virtual microscopes, where students inspect tissue slices in a computer program (e.g. a web browser). However, the educational data mining (EDM) potential of these virtual microscopes remains under-utilized. In this paper, we use EDM techniques to investigate three research questions on a virtual…

Smartphone-based experimental exercises were incorporated as part of the homework problems in an introductory mechanics course at a university. A quasi-experimental field study with two cohorts design was performed to measure the impact of such exercises on motivation, interest and conceptual understanding. The empirical results on learning…

Based in the tenants of standards-based grading or specifications grading systems, earning digital badges allows students to engage with content until they demonstrate the required knowledge through assessments to earn the badge. Using digital badges to show completion of criteria has gathered attention, but a study involving their use in a…