Engineering byDesign™ (EbD) provides teachers and students with reflective, formative, and comprehensive summative assessment tools throughout the curriculum. Each lesson, unit, and course is created with a list of essential questions that are meant to guide students to a deeper understanding of national standards across the STEM domains (STL,…

Lab components of undergraduate science courses typically have students complete highly directed cookbook-like laboratory activities. These experiences rarely engage students in a meaningful manner and do not accurately convey what the work of science entails. With funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), we have created more…

This paper discusses a novel structure for providing a high-impact, first year experience for science students. ASTER (Access to Science Through Experience in Research) is an extracurricular certification program designed to introduce our students to the research culture via seminar attendance, journal clubs, book clubs, and lab visits.…

We present the most recent steps undertaken to reform the introductory algebra-based course at The George Washington University. The reform sought to help students improve their problem-solving performance. Our pedagogy relies on didactic constructs such as the" GW-ACCESS problem-solving protocol," "instructional sequences" and…

"Leadership in Freshman Physics" is an NSF-funded professional development program designed to support 9th grade teacher leaders in the successful implementation of a "Physics First" or curriculum sequence that places physics prior to biology and chemistry. Leadership is viewed as an essential component in the initial success…

This article describes how a university and a museum have worked together to create a "How science works" workshop entitled "What's in our water?" The workshop teaches students about the continuing pollution from a disused coal mine, how the pollution is cleaned up using a state-of-the-art treatment works and how scientists…

Open-ended, inquiry-based multiweek laboratory exercises are the key elements to increasing students' understanding and retention of the major biological concepts. Including original research into undergraduate teaching laboratories has also been shown to motivate students and improve their learning. Here, we present a series of original…

As Drew University in New Jersey illustrates, such old standbys as chemistry and physics are making a comeback in the small colleges. (Editor)

Modules of physics instructional materials, each focusing on a particular physical system of interest to technical students, are being developed at four separate centers and coordinated by a Technical Physics Project Steering Committee. A typical module, constituting from one to three weeks of a physics course, will include a statement of…

Explains the Commission on College Physics' (CCP) change in priorities from preparing future physicists toward providing more appropriate physics courses for the nonscience college students. Discusses the development of the CCP conference which lead to the Physical Science for Nonscience Students (PSNS) project. Describes the activities which have…

THIS SPECIAL ISSUE OF "PHYSICS TODAY" REVIEWS THE STATUS OF SECONDARY SCHOOL PHYSICS, AS WELL AS COLLEGE PHYSICS AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE. SECONDARY LEVEL PROJECTS INCLUDE PHYSICAL SCIENCE STUDY COMMITTEE PHYSICS, HARVARD PROJECT PHYSICS, THE ENGINEERING CONCEPTS CURRICULUM PROJECT, AND THE NUFFIELD PROJECT. THOSE AT THE COLLEGE LEVEL…

Suggests that universities modify chemistry programs to be more appropriate for students who have had Nuffield project oriented instruction at secondary school level. The conclusions of a survey support this notion. (PS)

Students who had taken a Biological Sciences Curriculum Study biology course in high school were more likely to choose a biology-related science program in college than students who had taken other high school biology courses. (AL)