An undergraduate-level Computational Chemistry project was incorporated initially into a Physical Chemistry course and then into the laboratory curriculum in the subsequent application. Before the introduction of the project, the lectures covered quantum chemistry, spectroscopy, and kinetics while simultaneously including computational chemistry…

In science courses in general, but especially in first year chemistry classes, the amount of content that is delivered is often overwhelming and too complex for the student to easily cope with. Students not only have to gain knowledge in a variety of different fields, they also have to learn new laboratory skills and analytical techniques.…

Laboratory course redesign and effective implementation of an inquiry-based curriculum can be challenging, particularly when teaching assistants (TAs) are responsible for instruction. Our multiyear redesign of a traditional general chemistry laboratory course has included transitioning to a project based guided inquiry (PBGI) curriculum that…

How to help teachers to design teaching plan for raising student's competency at secondary school in Laos is now of great concern. On the other hand, teachers teach sciences almost by lecturing theoretical only. They rarely explain the problems based on actual phenomena that occur in pupils' daily life nor do experiment during the class. Thus, one…

Decreasing interest in Science among students, confirmed by several investigations, calls for the need to revise the contents of the curricula for Science subjects, including Biology. Modern Biology curricula should not only contain key biological concepts but also provide a teacher with sufficient space to develop students' competencies of…

Recently, there have been many calls for an increase in instruction on the nature of science (NOS) in schools (i.e. NRC, 1996; NGSS Lead States, 2013). These calls recognize the importance of this topic at all levels of science education, but there is little guidance in terms of how to address it effectively in curricula. Similarly, there have…

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Curriculum Development: Theory into Design.] This paper discusses the theoretical framework and curriculum materials that form the basis of the Investigative Science Learning Environment (ISLE) approach to learning and teaching physics. ISLE, as a philosophical approach to learning, has two core…

Efforts to reform undergraduate chemistry laboratory coursework typically focus on the curricula of introductory-level courses, while upper-level courses are bypassed. This study used video-stimulated recall to interview 17 junior- and senior- level chemistry majors after they carried out an experiment as part of a laboratory course. It is assumed…

Since 2010, second-year undergraduate students of an eight-year training program leading to a Doctor of Medicine degree or Doctor of Philosophy degree in Peking University Health Science Center (PKUHSC) have been required to enter the "Innovative talent training project." During that time, the students joined a research lab and…

Undergraduate biochemistry laboratory courses often do not provide students with an authentic research experience, particularly when the express purpose of the laboratory is purely instructional. However, an instructional laboratory course that is inquiry- and research-based could simultaneously impart scientific knowledge and foster a student's…

The Department of Chemistry at American University has replaced its junior- and senior-level laboratory curriculum with two, two-semester long, student-led research projects as part of the department's American Chemical Society-accredited program. In the first semester of each sequence, a faculty instructor leads the students through a set of…

Science, as a curriculum area, has gone through many changes recently with the oncoming of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), as well as the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Science is a part of everyday life which individuals experience. Even the drying up of a puddle of…

The development of scientifically literate citizens begins in the elementary school. Yet elementary school teachers are ill prepared to teach science (Trygstad, Smith, Banilower, Nelson, & Horizon Research, Inc., 2013). The research base on teacher preparation finds that programs designed to prepare elementary teachers are inadequate in…

The classroom, with its complex social structure and kaleidoscope of cognitive and phycho-sociological variables, has not often been the object of serious research. Content area specialists have concentrated on the sequential organization of materials and have left the direct applications of these materials, either to the intuitive strategies of…

A brief overview of the 2007 National Federation of the Blind-Jernigan Institute Youth Slam Chemistry Track, a course of study within a science camp that provided firsthand experimental experience to 200 students who are blind and low-vision, is given. For many of these students, this was their first hands-on experience with laboratory chemistry.…