Laboratory pedagogy is moving away from step-by-step instructions and toward inquiry-based learning, but only now developing methods for integrating inquiry-based writing (IBW) practices into the laboratory course. Based on an earlier proposal (Science 2011;332:919), we designed and implemented an IBW sequence in a university bioinformatics…

A desired outcome of education reform efforts is for undergraduates to effectively integrate knowledge across disciplines in order to evaluate and address real-world issues. Yet there are few assessments designed to measure if and how students think interdisciplinarily. Here, a sample of science faculty were surveyed to understand how they…

This article is a small empirical study based on two assignments, both involving reading and writing, in two physics courses at a Christian college. Students read theological, philosophical, and scientific arguments and produced research papers. By performing interdisciplinary intellectual work, students considered the compatibility of science and…

Competence in written scientific communication is an important learning outcome of undergraduate science degrees. Writing helps students learn, encourages them to think creatively and critically about their learning, and trains them in communicating their insights as disciplinary experts. However, challenges exist in incorporating writing…

At universities where introductory physics labs are taught by graduate student teaching assistants (TAs), there is a need for specialized professional development for those TAs. This paper presents a specific instantiation of a model for lab TA professional development that uses a combination of cognitive apprenticeship and expectancy-value…

The ability of science undergraduate students to capably communicate course content and their understanding of scientific phenomena through writing has long been considered a problem. Effective methods for improving student writing skills are often fragmented and undertaken on a course-by-course basis rather than as a coordinated approach. This…

Learning basic cell biology in an essential module can be daunting to second-year undergraduates, given the depth of information that is provided in major molecular and cell biology textbooks. Moreover, lectures on cellular pathways are organised into sections, such that at the end of lectures, students might not see how various processes are…

The objective of the project described in this article was to engage nonscience majors in a science communication assignment. Most of these students will not pursue careers in the sciences, so the traditional science communication formats (review papers, poster or oral presentation, lab reports) are not germane to their background, interests, and…

The central goal of this exploratory study was to characterize the effects of experiments involving different levels of inquiry on the nature of college students' written reflections about laboratory work. Data were collected in the form of individual lab reports written using a science writing heuristic template by a subset of the students…

Since 2002, a multidisciplinary program has been used to encourage science students to build on their chemical knowledge and to appreciate how it applies to the world around them. The program is interactive and instills a new set of core learning skills that are often underrepresented in undergraduate curricula, namely, cooperative learning,…

Most scientists agree that comprehension of primary scientific papers and communication of scientific concepts are two of the most important skills that we can teach, but few undergraduate biology courses make these explicit course goals. We designed an undergraduate neuroimmunology course that uses a writing-intensive format. Using a mixture of…

The objective of this study was to develop an online report writing activity that was a constructive and cooperative learning process for a course on traditional general physics experiments. Wiki, a CMC authoring tool, was used to construct the writing platform. Fifty-eight undergraduate students (33 men and 25 women), working in randomly assigned…

This study was based on the hypothesis that students' epistemological beliefs could become more expertlike with a combination of appropriate instructional activities: (i) preclass reading with metacognitive reflection, and (ii) in-class active learning that produces cognitive dissonance. This hypothesis was tested through a five-year study…

This paper presents a set of activities, which scaffolds students to succeed in the standard Physics gateway course. The set of instructional activities that were designed included four distinct components: reflective writing, collaborative groups, critiques, and an essay question on the examination. Each activity was designed to lead into and…

A writing assignment to increase student understanding of and interest in practical applications of organic chemistry is described. Students were required to study a pharmaceutical or other organic compound and perform a qualitative risk assessment on the chemical. Student perceptions of the benefits of the paper were generally positive. (Contains…