An experiment for the synthetic undergraduate laboratory is described in which zeolite 5A catalyzes the room temperature dehydration of diphenylmethanol, (C[subscript 6]H[subscript 5])[subscript 2]CHOH, producing 1,1,1',1'-tetraphenyldimethyl ether, (C[subscript 6]H[subscript 5])[subscript 2]CHOCH(C[subscript 6]H[subscript 5])[subscript 2]. The…

The study was intended to compare the quality of teaching learning process in the faculty of social science and science at University of Sargodha. This study was descriptive and quantitative in nature. The objectives of the study were to compare the quality of teaching learning process in the faculty of social science and science at University of…

Exposure to organic chemistry concepts in the laboratory can positively affect student performance, learning new chemistry concepts and building motivation towards learning chemistry in the lecture. In this study, quantitative methods were employed to assess differences in student performance, learning, and motivation in an organic chemistry…

This study proposed a novel instructional approach, a two-stage LED simulation of Project-based learning (PBL) course with online peer assessment (OPA), and explored how to apply OPA to the different structured problems in a PBL course to enhance students' professional skills in LED design as well as meta-cognitive thinking. The participants of…

We develop an Easy Java Simulation (EJS) model for students to experience the physics of idealized one-dimensional collision carts. The physics model is described and simulated by both continuous dynamics and discrete transition during collision. In designing the simulations, we discuss briefly three pedagogical considerations namely (1) a…

Many academic libraries and publishers have developed mobile-optimized versions of their web sites and catalogs. Almost all database vendors and major journal publishers have provided a way to connect to their resources via the Internet and the mobile web. In light of this pervasive use of the Internet, mobile devices and social networking, this…

Bringing Up Girls in Science (BUGS) was an afterschool program for 4th and 5th grade girls that provided authentic learning experiences in environmental science as well as valuable female mentoring opportunities in an effort to increase participants' academic achievement in science. BUGS participants demonstrated significantly greater amounts of…

Increasing rigor in secondary school classrooms for college and career readiness is a priority throughout the nation with the adoption of more challenging standards for student performance and is an important role for school leaders in creating conditions in schools to meet this challenge (Young, 2012). P-16 partnerships can assist by aligning the…

At the college level, the effectiveness of active-learning interventions is typically measured at the broadest scales: the achievement or retention of all students in a course. Coarse-grained measures like these cannot inform instructors about an intervention's relative effectiveness for the different student populations in their classrooms or…

We present a MATLAB script INSOLATE.m that calculates insolation at the top of the atmosphere and the total amount of daylight during the year (and other quantities) with respect to geographic latitude and Earth's obliquity (axial tilt). The script output displays insolation values for an entire year on a three-dimensional graph. This tool…

Starting from the premise that good writing requires sound thinking, this paper presents a workable process for developing and using writing assignments as thinking and learning tools within a historical and philosophical context. Though presented from the perspective of a chemist, this process is actually general in nature and links writing…

The development of scientific and quantitative reasoning skills in undergraduates majoring in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is an objective of many courses and curricula. The Biology Department at James Madison University (JMU) assesses these essential skills in graduating biology majors by using a multiple-choice exam…

Pedagogical strategies are policies for a tutor to decide the next action when there are multiple actions available. When the content is controlled to be the same across experimental conditions, there has been little evidence that tutorial decisions have an impact on students' learning. In this paper, we applied Reinforcement Learning (RL) to…

We present the results of a study carried out with students in their second year of Industrial Engineering to find out students' levels of satisfaction concerning the use of simulation tools (in this case an applet was used) as a tool for helping students learn the topic of movement by charged particles within electrical and magnetic fields. The…

Concept mapping is discussed as a tool for the visualisation of knowledge structures that can be exploited within biological education. Application of this tool makes it possible to relate the structure of the curriculum to the structure of the discipline, in order to support the development of robust student knowledge structures in ways that…