Practical work in secondary-level chemistry laboratories involves a high cognitive load for students. In addition to reading and understanding instructions, students have to think about observations and the underlying chemical concepts, as well as deal with the noise and social interaction of a busy classroom. One form of extraneous cognitive load…

This study aimed to develop pre-service science teachers' conceptual understanding of a nanoscience project through a newly introduced 8E learning cycle. This research was conducted during one semester of a nanoscience and nanotechnology course in the chemistry education department in Universitas Negeri Jakarta, Indonesia with thirty-three…

Most Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) research studies have focused on students' demographics, surveys, and retention data, while little attention has been paid to the authentic voices of the learners: the expressions of experiences, perceptions, and emotions in the MOOC students' own words. In this paper, we conducted and analyzed in-depth…

Promoting student engagement and academic achievement in first-year anatomy and physiology courses. "Adv Physiol Educ" 43: 443-450, 2019; doi:10.1152/advan.00205.2018. Students from three undergraduate programs at James Cook University, Queensland, Australia, studying combined first-year anatomy and physiology courses, showed different…

Assessing student learning to adapt instruction to support learning is an important skill all teachers need to develop. However, it is not an easy task for teachers and even more difficult for new teachers. The current study aims to explore an alternatively certified new chemistry teacher?s understanding and practices of classroom assessment to…

Despite agreement among teacher educators, scholars, and policymakers on the importance of teachers' subject matter knowledge (SMK), existing models provide limited information about the nature of this foundational component of teacher knowledge. The common assumption is that teachers need to know more about the science subject matter than their…

The teaching lab is an important component of training and developing undergraduate chemistry students. The lab provides a complex teaching environment where faculty address a number of student-centered goals, including the development of technical proficiency, demonstrations of theoretical concepts, promotion of teamwork, and modeling of data…

Recently, there have been many calls for an increase in instruction on the nature of science (NOS) in schools (i.e. NRC, 1996; NGSS Lead States, 2013). These calls recognize the importance of this topic at all levels of science education, but there is little guidance in terms of how to address it effectively in curricula. Similarly, there have…

The transition from high school to tertiary education can be a daunting prospect for students. The prospect of laboratories, an unfamiliar environment, for students, can increase levels of anxiety. Moreover, there is a growing body of evidence that suggests that students' self-efficacy is inversely correlated with students' anxiety. We surveyed…

Electrostatic potential maps (EPMs) allow for representation of key molecular-level information in a relatively simple and inexpensive format. As these visualizations become more prevalent in instruction, it is important to determine how students are exposed to them and supported in their use. A systematic review of current general and organic…

Metacognitive monitoring of one's own understanding plays a key role in learning. An aspect of metacognitive monitoring can be measured by comparing a student's prediction or postdiction of performance (a judgment made before or after completing the relevant task) with the student's actual performance. In this study, we investigated students'…

In a course on chemical applications of symmetry and group theory, students learn to use several useful tools (like character tables, projection operators, and correlation tables), but in the process of learning the mathematical details, they often miss the conceptual big picture about "why" and "how" symmetry leads to the…

Recent science education reform efforts have emphasized scientific practices in addition to scientific knowledge. Less work has been done at the tertiary level to consider students' engagement in scientific practices. In this work, we consider physical chemistry students' engagement in argumentation and construction of causal explanations.…

The modern world can be described as a globalized risk society. It is characterized by increasing complexity, unpredictable consequences of techno-scientific innovations and production, and its environmental consequences. Therefore, chemistry, just like many other knowledge areas, is in an ongoing process of "environmentalization." For…

This study presents our attempt to elicit students' progression in understanding the matter concept. Past work has identified the big ideas about matter students need to understand, the many everyday understandings students hold about these ideas, and levels of understanding through which students progress in developing understanding of the big…