Many STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines require a two-semester sequence of introductory college chemistry, which are thus critical gateway courses to a variety of majors. Recognizing the benefit to educators of a structure of content learning across the chemistry curriculum, in 2012, the American Chemical Society…

Students in a gateway college science course were assigned to two instructional conditions: explanation-only or augmented instruction. In the explanation-only condition, students wrote explanations for six excerpts from their textbook. The augmented-instruction condition wrote explanations on only four of the excerpts, with the other two serving…

A wood cantilever of length ~2.5 m is driven into resonance using the hand as a simple driver. Video recordings of these oscillations are analyzed to determine experimental second harmonic (n = 2) damped resonance frequencies. These frequencies are compared to theoretical ones, obtained from measurements of elastic moduli, damping properties, and…

In 2019 and 2020, third-year chemical engineering majors completed a concept inventory at the beginning and end of the semester in their thermodynamics course. Midway through spring semester of 2020, the course switched to emergency remote instruction, replacing hands-on inquiry-based laboratory activities (IBLAs) with short videos. Analysis of…

Background: This article presents the findings of a pilot study introducing students to emerging educational technologies to enhance their physics laboratory learning experiences. This follows a design-based laboratory approach in which the students move from constructing and developing their laboratory reports in a traditional cookbook…

Making decisions, reasoning, and constructing arguments with scientific evidence are essential skills for all members of society, especially in a world facing complex socioscientific issues such as climate change and pandemics. Argumentation is a complex linguistic practice but little is known about how students from diverse language backgrounds…

As we begin the third decade of the twenty-first century, in countries where English is the second or foreign language, the goal of internationalization is causing a rise in university first language-English bilingual science courses. Even though bilingual written scientific argumentation (BWSA)--a twenty-first-century skill--is an essential…

This study examined physics major retention to degree at two institutions with substantially different admissions selectivity. Two modes of leaving the physics major were examined: leaving college and changing to another major while staying in college. The risk of leaving college while still enrolled as a physics major was highest in the spring…

Supporting students in building well-grounded explanations plays a crucial role in scientific practice. Research in organic chemistry education on students' mechanistic explanations, however, has revealed various challenges. When solving mechanistic tasks, students experience difficulties when (I) deriving implicit properties from structural…

While teaching his first-ever introductory college astronomy course, I heard a graduate student make the comment that compared to other areas of astronomy, studying the solar system is just "stamp collecting." Coverage of the solar system in an introductory college astronomy course certainly "could" consist mostly of showing…

The use of free energy plots to understand the concept of thermodynamic equilibrium has been shown to be of great pedagogical value in materials science. Although chemical equilibrium is also amenable to this kind of analysis, it is not part of the agenda of materials science textbooks. Something similar is found in chemistry branches, where free…

Adding an evolutionary perspective to anatomy teaching can enrich student learning. One way of introducing evolutionary concepts into a course is by "sneaking it in" by presenting interesting and sometimes entertaining "stories" that add anatomical detail, encourage critical thinking, and illustrate underlying evolutionary…

The joint virtual global learning activity brought together college students from Jordan and New York City to learn about United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (UN SDG) #6 and explore the issues of water pollution and drinking water quality in both regions. The activity involved undergraduate students from Guttman Community College and…

The chemistry laboratory can be a daunting place for first year university students, especially those entering one for the first time with little or no prior laboratory experience. Increasing financial constraints placed on secondary schools has restricted the ability to provide rich laboratory experiences for students before entering tertiary…

Technique-centered biochemistry or molecular biology undergraduate laboratory curricula do not offer significant opportunities for thoughtful, in-depth exploration of the science to foster investigative learning. To demonstrate inclusion of inquiry-driven laboratory experiments into the undergraduate biochemistry and molecular biology curricula, a…