Collaborative learning methods are increasing in popularity as a way of improving student performance and involvement in undergraduate courses. For this study, a group quiz format was used in an attempt to improve course grades and engagement in an introductory meat science course. Six group quizzes and six individual quizzes were taken by 70…

Seeking to make upper secondary school physics more relevant and engaging, an online collaborative learning curriculum was designed. Each of the curriculum's lessons was structured as a goal-based scenario about human scientists on Mars. Video and audio data from the curriculum's implementation in Denmark was collected. This study utilized the…

The purpose of this study was to assess the relative effectiveness of cooperative learning (CL) strategies on learners' peer relatedness, academic support (AS), and learning gains in Biology. A quasi-experimental non-equivalent group pre-test post-test design was employed, involving a sample of 81 students. Both quantitative and qualitative data…

Introduction: The aim of the study was to examine the effects on Primary School Teacher Candidates of developing and implementing jigsaw technique activities enriched with educational games in Science and Technology Teaching lessons. Methods: In the study, the mixed design was used. The single group pre-test post-test weak experimental pattern…

In this study, the effectivity of jigsaw method, one of the cooperative learning models, on teaching the concepts related to sense organs and their functions to four-five year-old children in nursery class was analyzed. The study is in the semi-experimental design consisting of experimental and control groups and pretest and posttest. The sample…

It is well established that active learning results in greater gains in student conceptual knowledge and retention compared to traditional modes of teaching. However, active learning can be very difficult to implement in a large-enrollment course due to various course and institutional barriers. Herein, we describe the development and…

Many science educators know of the pedagogical benefits of inquiry- and research-based labs, yet numerous barriers to implementation exist. In this article we describe a faculty development workshop that explored interdisciplinary and inter-institutional collaborations as potential mechanisms for overcoming barriers to curricular innovation.

Appeals to reform science education by policy makers are not new phenomena. To be sure, while science reform efforts have been ongoing occurrences for nearly six decades, perpetual educational reform efforts as a whole have been evolving and gaining momentum in number for more than a century. The general motivation for continual reform appears to…

Recently, schools nationwide have expressed a renewed interest in school gardens (California School Garden Network, 2010), viewing them as innovative educational tools. Most of the scant studies on these settings investigate the health/nutritional impacts, environmental attitudes, or emotional dispositions of students. However, few studies examine…

The purpose of this study is to refine Japanese elementary science activity structures by using a CSCL approach to transform the classroom into a knowledge-building community. We report design studies on two science lessons in two consecutive years and describe the progressive refinement of the activity structures. Through comparisons of student…

Student reflective ideas were examined with respect to Group Investigation (GI), which was employed in 11th grade Korean earth science classrooms. A modified GI method was implemented during the course of an action research effort consisting of two yearlong projects. Students' writings, which had been produced twice a year, were analyzed to reveal…

This study employed problem-based learning (PBL) for project work in a Year 9 biology class. The purpose of the study was to investigate (a) how self-generated problems and questions directed students in their learning, (b) how students reacted to this instructional approach, and (c) the problems that they encountered. Students formulated problems…