In the context of the study, an instrumental analysis laboratory course offering Problem-Based Learning (PBL) was designed as an alternative to traditional laboratory practices. The study was conducted with a total of 36 volunteer, prospective chemistry teachers consisting of fourth year undergraduates and graduates. While PBL activities were…

The aim of this research was to investigate the effects of peer instruction on learning strategies, problem solving performance, and conceptual understanding of college students in a general chemistry course. The research was performed students enrolled in experimental and control groups of a chemistry course were selected. Students in the…

Overall, science teaching at the university level has remained in a relatively static state. There is much research and debate among university faculty regarding the most effective methods of teaching science. But it remains largely rhetoric. The traditional lecture model in STEM higher education is limping along in its march toward inclusion and…

Strong metacognition skills are associated with learning outcomes and student performance. Metacognition includes metacognitive knowledge--our awareness of our thinking--and metacognitive regulation--how we control our thinking to facilitate learning. In this study, we targeted metacognitive regulation by guiding students through self-evaluation…

In a large-enrollment, introductory biochemistry course for nonmajors, the authors provide students with formative feedback through practice questions in PDF format. Recently, they investigated possible benefits of providing the practice questions via an online game (Brainspan). Participants were randomly assigned to either the online game group…

The links students make among chemistry content is considered essential for a robust, enduring understanding in multiple learning theories. This article describes the development and implementation of an assessment technique, termed a Measure of Linked Concepts, designed to inform instructors on students' understanding of linking content…

Knowing an individual's geographic affiliation may be useful in evaluating a student's previous knowledge. To test this hypothesis, students in an online master's program were given presurveys to evaluate their previous knowledge in meteorology and geology, as well as geological and meteorological sense-of-place surveys.

Introductory materials science and engineering courses universally include the study of crystal structure and unit cells, which are by their nature highly visual 3D concepts. Traditionally, such topics are explored with 2D drawings or perhaps a limited set of difficult-to-construct 3D models. The rise of 3D printing, coupled with the wealth of…

This study ascertains that the students' affordance of teleologic explanations and anthropomorphic language in eliciting concepts in Physics is influenced by their age and learning exposure and experience. Using Explicative-Reductive Method of Descriptive Research, this study focused on the determinants of students' affordance of…

When students share and explore chemistry ideas with others, they use gestures and their bodies to perform their understanding. As a publicly visible, spatio-dynamic medium of expression, gestures and the body provide productive resources for imagining the submicroscopic, three-dimensional, and dynamic phenomena of chemistry together. In this…

Laboratory-based courses require students to compose reports based on the performed experiments to assess their overall understanding of the presented material; unfortunately, the sterile and formulated nature of the laboratory report disinterests most students. As a result, the outcome is a lower-quality product that does not reveal full…

The learning environment described here uses Web-based videoconferencing technology to merge the traditional classroom journal article discussion with student-led interviews of journal article authors. Papers that describe recent applications of a given technique are selected, with the author engagement occurring at the end of a three or four week…

In this paper, a discrepant event is used to initiate a learning cycle lesson to help students develop an understanding of the concept and equation for buoyant force. The data are gathered using readily available equipment and then graphically analyzed using a four-step analysis consistent with the modeling instructional approach. This laboratory…

Chemical kinetic experiments to determine rate laws are common in high school and college chemistry courses. For reactions involving a color change, rate laws can be determined experimentally using spectrophotometric or colorimetric equipment though this equipment can be cost prohibitive. Previous work demonstrated that inexpensive handheld camera…

The article describes the development of a new approach to teach molecular biology to undergraduate biology students. The 34 students who participated in this research belonged to the first period of the Biological Sciences teaching course of the Instituto Federal Goiano at Urutaí Campus, Brazil. They were registered in Cell Biology in the first…