In Australian Universities, based on a study from 1992 to 2014, the Feedback item has been consistently poorly rated by students. In addition, Biochemistry is a complex STEM subject which many students find difficult and was considered the hardest subject according to a recent study by Antigua medical school in the United States. In this work, a…

The aim of this study is to teach enzymes, which are one of the biology subjects in understanding which students have a big difficulty, to pre-service teachers through POE method in the case of catalase, which is an oxidoreductase. Descriptive analysis method was employed in this study in which 38 second grade pre-service teachers attending Uludag…

When conducting scientific research, experts in molecular and cellular biology (MCB) use specific reasoning strategies to construct mechanistic explanations for the underlying causal features of molecular phenomena. We explored how undergraduate students applied this scientific practice in MCB. Drawing from studies of explanation building among…

The "droso4schools" project aims to introduce the fruit fly "Drosophila" as a powerful modern teaching tool to convey curriculum-relevant specifications in biology lessons. Flies are easy and cheap to breed and have been at the forefront of biology research for a century, providing unique conceptual understanding of biology and…

A biochemistry course is a fundamental but important subject in medical education in China. In recent years, the number of international medical students has increased. Curriculum reform in biochemistry teaching is needed because of the knowledge limitations of students, a close linkage of biochemical content with clinics, the shortcomings of…

Test-enhanced learning has successfully been used as a means to enhance learning and promote knowledge retention in students. We have examined whether this approach could be used in a biochemistry course to enhance student learning about lipids-related concepts. Students were provided access to two optional learning modules with questions related…

This article describes the transition from a traditional instructor-centered course, based on lectures, to a student-centered course based on active learning methodologies as part of the reform of the Spanish higher education system within the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Specifically, we describe the use of active learning methodologies…

The existing literature on Problem-based learning (PBL) mostly paints a positive picture. If there were more evidence of the limitations of PBL, more could be done to apply the appropriate interventions to optimize the experience of PBL for students. The purpose of this article is to discuss second year medical students' perceptions of the…

In the Community-Based Inquiry (CBI) instructional method, cooperative student groups complete case study activities based on scientific literature and conduct their own laboratory investigations that address authentic community needs. This study compared critical thinking and content knowledge outcomes between traditional Introduction to…

As a result of enrollment expansion, increasing numbers of students are entering into medical school in China. This combined with a shortage of teachers, means that the learning environment typically consists of a large classroom setting with traditional lecture-based learning (LBL) as the major mode to teaching and learning. In this article, we…

Extracts of fruit peels contain antioxidants that protect the bacterium "Escherichia coli" against damage induced by ultraviolet light. Antioxidants neutralise free radicals, thus preventing oxidative damage to cells and deoxyribonucleic acid. A high survival rate of UV-exposed cells was observed when grapefruit or grape peel extract was…

A protein lacking one of the 20 common amino acids is a protein lipogram. This open-ended problem-based learning assignment deals with the evolution of proteins with biased amino acid composition. It has students query protein and metabolic databases to test the hypothesis that natural selection has reduced the frequency of each amino acid…

Enzyme kinetics is a difficult subject for students to learn and for tutors to teach. During the practicals included in the biochemical courses at the Faculty of Chemistry of Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, we found that the students acquire good training in the calculations to obtain kinetic parameters such as K[subscript m], V[subscript…

Classroom discussion of scientific articles can be an effective means of teaching scientific principles and methodology to both undergraduate and graduate science students. The availability of classic papers from the American Physiological Society Legacy Project has made it possible to access articles dating back to the early portions of the 20th…