Interest in active learning continues to grow worldwide. Although the large volume of active learning research has provided a myriad of ways to implement active learning in the classroom, the construct remains underdeveloped and difficult to operationalize because of three main issues in the research literature: (a) the confusion surrounding what…

To investigate the variation in active learning used in college science courses, the authors analyzed 57 comparison studies published in three prominent science education journals. Focusing on three sources of variation--(a) the active learning activities, (b) other pedagogical features, and (c) course structure/design--they found that most…

Reports of the results of research within the emerging field of biochemistry education are appearing at an ever-increasing rate. Capturing an image of the landscape of Biochemistry Education Research (BCER) is complicated, however, by the interdisciplinary nature of biochemistry courses that may be taught at different levels and in different…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the quality of research-based learning conducted remotely through the use of the Moodle learning management system using the Context, Input, Process, and Product (CIPP) evaluation model. Data sources include lecturers, students, faculty documents, study program materials, and Moodle learning management…

The author was invited to write this opinion piece following a presentation at the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) conference on Methods in Education Chemistry Research related to translating creative teaching ideas and innovations into chemistry education research outputs. With a keen interest in learning and teaching and a solid training in…

Peace and conflict studies (PACS) education in recent decades has become a popular approach to social justice learning in higher education institutions (Harris, Fisk, and Rank 1998; Smith 2007; Carstarphen et al. 2010; Bajaj and Hantzopoulos 2016) and has been provided legitimacy through a number of different United Nations (UN) declarations…

In this article I examine the role of the contemporary university in light of the mass increase in class sizes that has occurred on an international scale. While we may look nostalgically back to a time when lectures numbered a few hundred students and tutorials had as few as ten, massification at undergraduate level is an inescapable fact of…

This meta-analytic study focused on the quantitative integration and synthesis of the accumulated pedagogical research in undergraduate statistics education literature. These accumulated research studies compared the academic achievement of students who had been instructed using one of the various forms of small-group learning methods to those who…

Although previous research has found interteaching to be an effective form of instruction, all of the currently published data have been collected in courses that have allowed for a minimum of 48 hours between class sessions. In the current study, we examined the effectiveness of interteaching compared to traditional lecture during a six week…

Beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s, higher education was swept up in the theoretical phenomena of mastery learning, cooperative learning, and small-group learning. Professors, instructors, and teachers at the K-12 level became facilitators, guides, supervisors, counselors, and advocates for all things team and group. The thought of a…

Lectures have been widely criticized as a method of teaching, but remain a standard component of most university mathematics courses. Does this necessarily harm students' education? This critical review contends that many arguments against lecturing are misconceived, at least when applied to mathematics. The effectiveness of lectures in carrying…

Research indicates that student achievement improves when teachers provide opportunities for active engagement. Guided notes have been suggested as a way to increase active student responding during teacher-directed lectures. The purpose of this review was to summarize research on the effectiveness of guided notes. Specifically, we sought to…

The notion of quality in undergraduate mathematics lectures is examined by using theoretical notions and research results from the literature and empirical data from a case study on lecturing on limits of functions. A systemic triangular model is found to catch critical quality aspects of a mathematics lecture, consisting of mathematical…