Graduate students who fulfill teaching roles in the undergraduate laboratory play an important role in establishing a positive learning environment. A host of various graduate teacher training programmes have been developed, implemented and evaluated accordingly in order to enhance their teaching capability. In addition research has also…

This article describes a 1-credit hour laboratory course focused on psychomotor and affective objectives of performing surface palpation. It was part of the first-year curriculum of the Nova Southeastern University Hybrid Doctor of Physical Therapy Program (HDPT). The course was converted to hybrid from an existing traditional course that met…

The purpose of this research is to identify the problems that teachers have experienced during the implementation of the science curriculum and their suggestions for solution to these problems. In the research, survey model has been used among the descriptive research methods in which quantitative and qualitative data have been used together. The…

The fact that humans possess fast and slow-twitch muscle in the ratio of approximately 50% has profound implications for designing exercise training strategies for power and endurance activities. With the growth of exercise and sport science courses, we have seen the need to develop an undergraduate student laboratory that demonstrates the basic…

The history of learning biology through distance education is documented. A review of terminology and unique problems associated with biology instruction is presented. Using published research and their own teaching experience, the authors present recommendations and best practices for managing biology in distance-based formats. They offer ideas…

During the beginning years of teaching, science teachers develop the knowledge and skills needed to design and implement science laboratories. In this regard, this quantitative study focused on the reported laboratory practices of 61 beginning secondary science teachers who participated in four different induction programs. The results…

The purpose of this paper is to address the need for guidance on professional standards for educational practices in online education. Since 1995, the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) has provided leadership in the introduction and successful implementation of distance education. During this time, the ASCCC has played a…

Sympathetic and parasympathetic divisions of the autonomic nervous system constantly control the heart (sympathetic and parasympathetic divisions) and blood vessels (predominantly the sympathetic division) to maintain appropriate blood pressure and organ blood flow over sometimes widely varying conditions. This can be adversely affected by…

In the first part of this series, which appeared in the February 2013 issue of "Techniques" (see EJ1015189), the authors discussed the need for providing a safe and healthy learning environment in career and technical programs, and introduced a model for ensuring that this type of environment exists. The critical core component of…

While I was co-teaching an introductory course in musical acoustics a few years ago, our class investigated several pieces of equipment designed for audio purposes. One piece of such equipment was a pair of noise-canceling headphones. Our students were curious as to how these devices were in eliminating background noise and whether they indeed…

Some of the results from the electrostatics portion of introductory physics are particularly difficult for students to understand and/or believe. For students who have yet to take vector calculus, Gauss's law is far from obvious and may seem more difficult than Coulomb's. When these same students are told that the minimum potential…

Communication is an important part of scientific practice and, arguably, may be seen as constitutive to scientific knowledge. Yet, often scientific communication gets cursory treatment in science studies as well as in science education. In Nature of Science (NOS), for example, communication is rarely mentioned explicitly, even though, as will be…

Gel electrophoresis, used by geneticists and forensic experts alike, is an immensely popular technique that utilizes an electric field to separate molecules and proteins by size and charge. At the microscopic level, a dye or complex protein like DNA is passed through agarose, a gelatinous three-dimensional matrix of pores and nano-sized tunnels.…

Temperature and other environmental stressors are known to affect blood pressure and heart rate. In this activity, students perform the cold pressor test, demonstrating increased blood pressure during a 1- to 2-min immersion of one hand in ice water. The cold pressor test is used clinically to evaluate autonomic and left ventricular function. This…

A hypothesis-driven laboratory is described that introduces students to the complexities of ecosystem function. Students work with live algae, brine shrimp, and sea anemones to test hypotheses regarding the trophic interactions among species, the exchange of nutrients and gases, and the optimal ratio of producers to consumers and predators in…