Background: Society requires individuals to have the ability to synthesise knowledge from diverse sources, typically acquired through science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Objectives and Methods: We utilised a moderately rigorous design to investigate the effects of combining a hands-on STEM activity with active…

This paper reflects the results from a 3-year quantitative study in higher education on inquiry-based learning (IBL). Utilizing primary data collection in a quasi-experimental survey, we examined the impact of IBL on six cohorts of undergraduate students. We aimed to answer our main research question: Can IBL be an effective pedagogy that helps…

Previous research has shown that in prehigher education stages, inquiry-based teaching is not sufficient for forming a mature understanding of the nature of science (NOS). However, there is relatively little research conducted on colleges. Inquiry-based teaching should not overlook cognitive frameworks, as students' limited scientific reasoning…

This article argues that the best way to increase inquiry-based instruction is paradoxically to pay more attention to direct instruction because excessive attention to practices like close reading of texts and facilitating text-based discussions has led to neglect of content knowledge explanation as a core instructional practice. This article…

In this article, we have examined the effectiveness of teaching economics through project-based learning. For this purpose, we carried out an experiment at secondary schools in the Slovak Republic. We divided 123 students into control and experimental groups. In both groups, teaching was carried out on the same topic by the same teacher in the…

Active learning is considered among teaching approaches best suited for promoting critical thinking in science classrooms. Hence, the reformed South African school curriculum identified active learning as appropriate to achieve most of its objectives. This paper reports on an explorative study of a science teacher's active learning conceptions and…

Low literacy levels are believed to be one of the causes of environmental damage problems. It is felt that the current implementation of the problem-based learning model is still not optimal in increasing students' environmental literacy, especially regarding sustainable issues. This research aims to (1) produce a sustainable issue-based learning…

Purpose: The article explores how the tension between embracing and scrutinising democracy can be productively overcome through social science teaching about democracy that focuses on trust as a subject content. Design/methodology/approach: Empirical materials were collected through focus group interviews before and after an inquiry-based teaching…

Ecosystem services (ES) are the benefits people obtain from nature contributing to our well-being. Although this concept has high didactic potential, its presence in education literature is scarce. This article presents the ES framework as a new teaching principle that, taught together with the biodiversity concept, may help students develop…

A pilot experiment was developed in a Biomedical Sciences curricular unit to test how using a different knowledge-sharing method (World Café) in a Space for Active Learning and Teaching would affect students' engagement. Each working group was asked to prepare a poster summarising a different topic about the physiology of the oocyte. On the…

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…

Peer-assisted learning and group facilitation have been proven to foster active participation in small-group learning, and these effective teaching modalities have been shown to enhance learning outcomes. This study introduced a student peer facilitator role in an anatomy small-group curriculum for pre-clerkship medical students and explored its…

Teaching through collaborative making has found its way into K12 schools and colleges of education, but minimal research exists on making for learning in special education settings. Even less research is available focusing on preservice special education teachers using making as a pedagogical tool for academic interventions. This multiple case…

This study investigated secondary school teacher's experiences in learning to teach 21st Century skills through the design and implementation of Project based (PBL) curriculum. Data collection focused on in-service teachers who completed a 3-unit, 16-week course part of a Master's degree program in Curriculum & Instruction (C & I). Data…

Active learning pedagogical practices are more effective than instructor-centered teaching in building students' knowledge, skills, and understanding of engineering content and concepts. As such, a large-scale professional development (PD) program was created to move faculty toward the use of active learning. The project aimed to engage faculty in…