Rock and mineral labs are fundamental in traditional introductory geology courses. Successful implementation of these lab activities provides students opportunities to apply content knowledge. Inquiry-based instruction may be one way to increase student success. Prior examination of published STEM labs indicates that geology labs, particularly…

Analysis of weekly peer-reviewed writing exercises in undergraduate introductory biology courses revealed that student improvement in ability to judge essays correlated with improvement in their own writing (n = 121 students). This correlation occurred across the spectrum of academic ability. The essays were scored by peers, self, and the…

Lesson planning is a core part of teachers' professional competence. Written lesson plans play a significant role in science teacher education as a preparation for demonstration lessons during the final teacher certification exam. However, the few existing scoring rubrics on lesson plans are not particularly theoretically sound and are barely…

While the distinction between academic disciplines and school subjects has received some attention, the question of which subject matter content knowledge (CK) teachers need as a foundation for initial teacher development has been raised. In science education, Teacher-related Science Content Knowledge (TerSCK) has been conceptualized to model the…

Lab activities in primary and secondary education are essential to promote students' scientific skills. In this article, we propose a lab activity where different antimicrobial agents are used to the microorganisms' susceptibility to them. Moreover, we produce a rubric, a scoring tool, to quantify students' replies and evaluate the whole activity.…

Business Model Canvas (BMC) is a business model that must be mastered by students in the Bioentrepreneurship course as an initial provision for entering the entrepreneurial world, while in compiling Business Model Canvas (BMC) systematic thinking skills are needed. This study aims to provide an assessment instrument to measure students' system…

A structured series of activities has been designed and implemented to promote analysis and data reporting skills for second-year organic chemistry students. Student report sheets were developed to assist students in reporting necessary data for their compounds. A series of rubrics have been utilized by students to promote metacognition and by…

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection in Investigating and Improving Quantum Education through Research.] One of the greatest weaknesses of physics education research is the paucity of research on graduate education. While there are a growing number of investigations of graduate student degree progress and admissions, there are very few…

Mass balance (MB) reasoning offers a rich topic for examination of students' scientific thinking and skills, as it requires students to account for multiple inputs and outputs within a system and apply covariational reasoning. Using previously validated constructed response prompts for MB, we examined 1,920 student-constructed responses (CRs)…

The low critical thinking skills and collaboration skills of students in biology learning are caused by the dominance of conventional learning, so they require alternative learning strategies. This study aims to determine the effect of GITTW learning strategy on student critical thinking and collaboration skills. The research design used was…

Learner-centered and inclusive and equitable teaching practices aim to promote better learning outcomes for all students. Course syllabi can provide a window into these practices. We adapted an existing rubric to measure inclusiveness and equity-mindedness of syllabi and used an established rubric to assess their learner-centeredness. We then…

In this paper we argue that the complexity of education systems can lead to a lack of coherence in the implementation of policy. More effective educational change requires policymakers and researchers to pay more attention to supporting teachers in classrooms. As an example, we consider decades of research attempts in STEM education to implement…

Co-teaching teams of special educators and science educators can collaboratively plan and implement the Rock Out the Rubric revising strategy to improve students' writing in science class. The strategy is implemented as part of the evidence-based writing practice of Self-regulated Strategy Development (SRSD). In this article, first we describe how…

This study aimed to unveil pre-service primary school teachers' (PPSTs) technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) regarding the unit "Let's Recognize the Force" suggested by grade 3 science curriculum. Through a single-case (holistic) design of case study method, 43 PPSTs voluntarily participated in the study. To collect data,…

Designing and analyzing lesson plans is a ubiquitous practice in teacher education, and yet we know little about how preservice teachers (PSTs) notice elements of their lesson plans that afford opportunities for supporting equitable student sensemaking. We investigate how the use of a tool, a framework for supporting equitable sensemaking, guided…