Engaging students in scientific practices has become an important pedagogical component in STEM education, although its implementation in laboratories is still emerging. This paper uses three types of guiding questions to facilitate scientific practices in introductory and analytical chemistry laboratories. What makes our instructional model…

Peer educators can be a powerful addition to classroom learning environments. Traditionally, the university science teaching model relies on graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) to provide instruction in laboratory class sessions, but there is increasing evidence that undergraduate TAs (UTAs) can fill an equivalent role. A comparison of student…

A study compared student learning in two sections of an introductory college biology course for nonmajors. Groups were taught in the traditional teacher-centered, lecture/laboratory format (n=86 students) and in a student-centered constructivist format (n=98). The latter group performed significantly better on the same tests, maintained a better…