Cross-curricula opportunities afforded by STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics education), supports an environment where students can develop twenty-first century competencies. One approach to addressing cross-curricula opportunities in STEM education is the introduction of computer science (computer…

This qualitative study explores the experiences of six students enrolled in a special topics biology class that exclusively used primary literature as course material. Nature of science (NOS) conceptions have been linked to students' attitudes toward scientific subjects, but there has been little research specifically exploring the effects of…

In the undergraduate biology laboratory, many freshmen are apathetic towards the content of the course. Curriculum based reader's theater (CRBT) is an instructional method that can increase interest the students in the content of the course while improving student communication, collaboration and understanding. This research is an examination of…

Researchers examined how an inquiry-based instructional treatment emphasizing interrelated plant processes influenced 210 elementary pre-service teachers' (PTs) conceptions of three plant processes, photosynthesis, cellular respiration, and transpiration, and the interrelated nature of these processes. The instructional treatment required PTs to…

Goal clarity is an essential element of classroom dialogue and a component of effective instruction. Until now, teachers have been struggling to implement goal clarity in the classroom dialogue. In the present study, we investigated the classroom practice of teachers in a video-based intervention called the Dialogic Video Cycle (DVC) and compared…

The purpose of the current study is to determine the effect of talking drawings on Turkish preschool children's mental models of the water cycle. The study was conducted in the city of Kastamonu, located in the north-west of Turkey. A total of 40 five-year-old preschool children participated in the study in the spring term of the 2015-2016 school…

We implemented a laboratory curriculum reform to teach foundational concepts in chemistry, particularly those concepts related to healthcare, in a chemistry course for prenursing students. Here, we discuss the reform, exploring how students built upon understandings gained in lab and correlating lab learning to course outcomes. We further discuss…

The goal of the present study is to determine how to incorporate social cues such as gesturing in animated pedagogical agents (PAs) for online multimedia lessons in ways that promote student learning. In 3 experiments, college students learned about synaptic transmission from a multimedia narrated presentation while their eye movements were…

The present study aimed to examine whether distributed practice works better than massed practice for proceduralization of grammatical knowledge. Learners of Japanese as a second language were trained on an element of Japanese morphology under either massed or distributed practice conditions. Results showed that massed practice led to accurate…

This study, which is an experimental research with pre-test and post-test control groups, aims to determine the effectiveness of the Synectics Instructional Model on foreign language vocabulary teaching. The research was conducted with two experimental and two control groups and 82 students taking part in these groups. The experimental application…

The grammatical gender of German nouns continues to pose a challenge to second language learners. Following from a connectionist framework, this study explores the effect of two input enhancement techniques, color-coding and gendered actors, on the learning of grammatical gender by beginning learners of German during a vocabulary acquisition…

Experts are more proficient in manipulating and translating between multiple representations (MRs) of a given concept than novices. Studies have shown that instruction using MR can increase student understanding of MR, and one model for MR instruction in chemistry is the chemistry triplet proposed by Johnstone. Concreteness fading theory suggests…

Background: Complexity models have provided a suitable framework in various domains to assess students' educational achievement. Complexity is often used as the analytical focus when regarding learning outcomes, i.e. when analyzing written tests or problem-centered interviews. Numerous studies reveal negative correlations between the complexity of…

As discipline-based astronomy education researchers become more interested in experimentally testing innovative teaching strategies to enhance learning in undergraduate introductory astronomy survey courses ("ASTRO 101"), scholars are placing increased attention toward better understanding factors impacting student gain scores on the…

Purpose: While empowerment for sustainability is considered a major objective within sustainability-oriented educational programs and policies, little is known about the actual process of empowering students for sustainability through higher education. This study aims to explore this field, by introducing the EYE (Educating Yourself in…